Category Archives: Midterm Exam

MIDTERM PREP

Posted on by
2

“And lots of other things,” said he. “But you haven’t done half as much of your lovely work since you started this kitchen business, and you’ll will forgive me, dear it hasn’t been as good. Your work is quite too good to lose; it is a beautiful and distinctive art, and I don’t want you to let it go.”

1. The Cottagette

2. Charlotte Perkins Gilman

3. In this passage, Ford Matthews is explaining to Malda that even though he still grew to love her even after she started cooking and cleaning, he insist that she lets it go for her own sake. He knows how talented she is and he feels it would be a waste to let cooking and cleaning get in the way of her art.

4. This passage relates to the bigger issue of how society views women. Maldas love for Matthews was so strong that she didn’t realize how she was slowly becoming a house wife. Nowadays it is very common to have house wifes that stay home, clean and cook. This passage is important because it shows us that they are men who don’t think every wife needs to be a house wife, that she can be whoever she wants and the man will still love her unconditionally.

Midterm Quotations

Posted on by
Reply

“I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house.”

Title:The Yellow Wallpaper

Author:Charlotte Perkins Gilman

This quotation is explaining when the narrator is interrupting her thoughts by recalling her husbands instructions for the rest cure. John has left his wife no choice but to internalized all the demands he has ask her to follow. She can’t help but to think about the way her husband treats her. To escape from feeling unhappy she simply decides to take about the house. This quotation relates to the entire theme of the story because this marks the point where the wife slides to madness with the house including the wallpaper and herself.

 

“But there,was,she knew,something else.Happiness,she supposed.Whatever that might be.What,exactly,she wondered,was happiness.Very positively she wanted it”

Title: Quicksand

Author: Nella Larsen

This quotation is explaining what Helga wants in her life, which is to be completly happy internally and externally. Happiness is something she never had in her life. She can’t seem to get a hold of being joyful because she is constantly running away from it. This quote relates to the entire theme of the story because throughout the course of the story Helga struggles with race and being accepted among  blacks and whites. This relates to her content search for happiness.

Midterm prep

Posted on by
Reply

” Incited. That was it, the guiding principle of her life in Copenhagen. She was incited to make an  impression. She was incited to inflame attention and admiration. She was dressed for it, subtly schooled for it. And after a while she gave herself up wholly to the fascinating business of being seen, gaped and desired. ”

1.Quicksand

2.Nella Larsen

3.In this passage Helga was provoked by the opinion of others in Copenhagen. She was convinced that her expensive clothes would make an impression on others , especially men in Denmark. Helen was provoked to expect attention due to the amount of care she had already begun to receive. Being back in Denmark she had began to notice that she would be praised In some sort and desired, she gave up her original style to take on a style that had been provoked by the people of Copenhagen and the way they treated her.

4.To me this passage helps to represent the inconsistency of Helga. It connects to the bigger picture In this text because it proves as just another one of the escapades on the journey of finding herself. This passage helps me to notice that Helga does not really accept herself besides  what makes her acceptable to others. It is justification that who she is , or was before she came back to Denmark was not something or someone that she was satisfied with. Helga spent a lot of time criticizing herself, and when others did not criticize her, she felt a sense if belonging. I think the bigger picture here is identity.

Midterm prep

Posted on by
1

“Her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty–her blushes, her great grace. In those days–the last of Queen Victoria–every house had its Angel. And when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of her wings fell on my page; I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room. Directly, that is to say, I took my pen in my hand to review that novel by a famous man, she slipped behind me and whispered: “My dear, you are a young woman. You are writing about a book that has been written by a man. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all, be pure.”

1. Professions for Women

2. Virginia Wolf

3. In this passage the beauty and pure ness of the angel is being explained. The angel to me is a metaphor for what women writers are expected to portray , if not outwardly at least consciously. The writer Is being manipulated by that “angel” in the room to deceive others through  her writing. If the writer listens to the angel she will not give readers the impression of her real writing style , but they will be exposed to an accepted but fabricated version of the writers work. It is definitely a contradiction for the angel to ask her to be all the things she is not, but to still be pure.

4.This passage connects to larger issues in the text because, to me it brings my attention to the fact that in any profession for women, especially writing, females have a set standard for which they are expected to look, live and behave by. This set standard really puts strain on women to alter their work, and or looks. The symbolism of the angel in the room represents the ideal woman who lives up to everyone else’s expectations. In life today it is even so. The advantage of having your own mins is conflicted by the opinions if others. This passage sheds a little light on the controversies involved with professions for women.

 

Midterm Prep

Posted on by
1

1)   “Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was”

Title: The Yellow Wallpaper

Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Explain: Here, the narrator is talking about the impact the yellow wallpaper has on her. She explains that she has something to be excited for again and its affecting her life positively. This connects to the larger issue of her post-pardon psychosis as she is imagining the yellow wallpaper to be something much more than it is.

2)   “I have all of your letters here. I look at them everyday. I have one that looks as though it’s weeping, because the words fade away into nothing, and another that looks as if it’s been through a hard day, because there’s a smudge of dirt at each corner, and it smells of kerosene and burnt sugar. But I can’t tell you what they say, because I don’t read. I can’t tell whether there are any truths, but I keep them, ‘cause George gives me his heart, though it covered in mud and filthy, but he gives it to me in one of these letters. And I believed him. I believed him!

Title: Intimate Apparel

Author: Lynn Nottage

Explain: Here, Esther is talking about the physical appearance of the letters. She compares the way the letters look to the experiences of a human, crying or being tired after a long say. She gives them personification because she cannot read, so she implies from their appearance. She is upset because although she cannot read the letters, she knew that George said he gave her his heart in these letters. Therefore she cannot understand the cheating ways of his actions now.

 

 

Midterm Quotations: Quicksand

Posted on by
1

1. Quicksand

2. The author of the story is Nella Larsen

3. ” The great community, she thought, was no longer a school. It had grown into a machine. It was now  a show place in the black belt, exemplification of the Whiteman’s magnanimity, refutation of the black man’s inefficiency. Life had died out of it”.

4. This quote examines how Helga comes to the realization that it did not matter how educated and well mannered you become, there is still the notion of the African-American race still being limited. She understands that they are being oppressed. This the beginning where Helga throughout the story, dabbles into her not being able to see where she truly thinks she fits in, despite being mixed race.

Midterm Quotation: Story Of An Hour

Posted on by
2

1. The Story of an Hour

2.Kate Chopin

3. ” When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: ” free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.”

4. This quote is about the feelings that start to arise from Mrs. Mallard, due to the assumption of the unexpected death of her husband. We get a glimpse of how Mrs. Mallard feels free from the burden of having to live under the shadow of her husband. She no longer has to be indulged in her wifely duties.

Midterm Quotes

Posted on by
1

1)

Passage “That woman, then, who was born with a gift of poetry in the sixteenth century, was an unhappy woman, a woman at strife against herself. All the conditions of her life, all her own instincts, were hostile to the state of mind which is needed to set free whatever is in the brain. But what is the state of mind that is most propitious to the act of creation? ”

Title of text: A Room of One’s Own

Author: Virginia Woolf

What is happening in this passage is that Woolf is talking about woman’s state of mind. She leans towards the argument that women might be the best writers because of all of the conditions in their life. They would be able to write against the struggle against themselves that most male writers do not have.

This passage connects to larger issues in the essay because it is about women in the 16th century. It talks about their struggles, and how because you are a women you have no chance of following your passion. It argues what state of mind is right for creation? What do males have that the females do not?

2)

Passage: “…who had been born in this dirty, mad, hurrying city, had no home here. She had not even any friends here.”

Title of text: Quicksand

Author: Nelia Larsen

What is happening in this passage is that the reader is learning that Helga Crane has no home, or friends and we learn that she is going to be starting a journey of finding herself

How does this tie into the main themes of the novel? Well especially in the first half of the novel we follow Helga on her journey of finding herself. We watch her move to Chicago, to Harlem, to Denmark, and back to Harlem. We see that she has no real home, and she does not feel comfortable with her mix race.

 

 

Midterm questions 1

Posted on by
4

 

“I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • identify the title of the text- The Yellow Wallpaper
  • identify the author-Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  • explain what is happening in the passage, – In this passage, her disorder , loniless and unhappy marriage makes her very sad and makes her depressed.
  • explain how it connect to larger issues or themes in the text- This is connected to the larger issues in the text which is how her disorder and her unhappy marriage makes her feel unwanted. Also due to her disorder she was kept in her bedroom isotlated form the outdie world which made her go crazy

Midterm exam prep

Posted on by
2

1) “But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.”

 

 

The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin

This quote comes from a time in the story when Mrs. Mallard was thinking about her life after hearing the news of the death of her husband.

This quote connects with the theme of Mrs. Mallard being free from her marriage. Before the death of her husband, she was trapped in her marriage. She felt like she couldn’t have her own opinion because her husband would have one for her. Now that he was dead, she could finally think for herself and be truly happy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) “But does it matter, I ask? Does it matter? Has he spent an evening at home? Has he so much as complimented my gowns this season or noticed that I’ve painted the damn boudoir vermilion red? Just look at this awful color, looks like a bohemian garret. But, does he notice? ”

Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage

In this quote, Mrs. Van Buren is trying on lingerie that Ester has made for her. while trying on the clothes, she expresses her feelings about the lack of Mr. Van Buren’s attention to her.

This quote connects to the issue of low self esteem. Mrs. Van Buren’s lack of self worth leads her to believe that if she changes things about herself, that her husband will notice and pay more attention. the quote shows the moment that she questions whether or not the changes she is making makes a difference to her husband. No matter how outfits she wears to impress him, she wonders if he notices anything. This can also be deeper than if he notices the changes she’s making, but if he notices that she’s trying something different about herself to try to save their relationship. Does he notice that her change of appearance is a cry for help, a plea for attention and love?