English Midterm

Bailey I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

- Maya's older brother. Like Maya, he is intelligent and mature beyond his age.

Nouns in -um

-a medium media curriculum-> curricula

nouns in -is

-es thesis theses crisis crises

Mrs. Bertha Flowers - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

A black aristocrat living in Stamps, Arkansas. One of Maya's idols, she becomes the first person to prod Maya out of her silence after Maya's rape.

A Telephone Call- by Dorothy Parker- Summary

An infatuated, obsessed woman is eagerly waiting for her boyfriend to call her up at 5:00. Now it is 7:10 but he has not called up yet. She thinks that this is God's way of punishing her for being bad. She promises to be good and sweet to her boyfriend if he calls up now. She keeps on calling God's attention, frantically waiting for her boyfriend to call up. She thinks that perhaps he is on his way to her place, and this is the reason for his not calling up yet. On one hand, she thinks of calling him up, but hesitates. She counts anxiously while waiting for that telephone call.

Vivian Baxter - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Bailey and Maya's mother. Although she has a nursing degree, she earns most of her money working in gambling parlors or by gambling herself.

If the noun ends in a y

Change the y to an i and add -es

"Yellow wallpaper" themes

Depression ---> insanity (fragility of human spirit) Oppression by societal expectations Submissiveness of women at the time of setting

A light shade had been pulled down between the Black community and all things white, but one could see through it enough to develop a fear-admiration-contempt for the white "things"—white folks' cars and white glistening houses and their children and their women. But above all, their wealth that allowed them to waste was the most enviable. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

In this passage in Chapter 8, Angelou captures Maya's childlike observations about what makes white people different. Her fixation on clothing as a sign of difference also refers back to the incident in church when she suddenly realizes that her fairy-tale taffeta dress is really an old, faded white woman's hand-me-down. Stamps, Arkansas, suffers so thoroughly from segregation and Maya's world is so completely enmeshed in the black community that she often finds it hard to imagine what white people look like. They appear to her more like spectral ghosts with mysterious powers—and wonderful possessions—than as fellow human beings

My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. . . . This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than the apes. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

In this scene in Chapter 19, Maya crowds around the Store's radio with the rest of the community to listen to Joe Louis defend his world heavyweight boxing title. As Maya conveys in this passage, the entire black community has its hopes and psychological salvation bound up in the fists of Louis, "the Brown Bomber." This passage describes the precarious nature of black pride in the face of hostile oppression, highlighting the staggering and wrenching significance this boxing match held for the community as the community teeters between salvation and despair.

"Jupiter Doke, Brogadier General" themes

Irony

"The Lottery" themes

Irony Human sacrifice THERE WILL BE A QUESTION ABOUT THE LOTTERY

"By The Waters of Babylon" themes

Knowledge is power When knowledge is kept by a few number of people, then the people who don't have knowledge look up to the ones with the power (in this case, they are the priests)

The Story of an Hour- Kate Chopin- Summary

Louise Mallard has heart trouble, so she must be informed carefully about her husband's death. Her sister, Josephine, tells her the news. Louise's husband's friend, Richards, learned about a railroad disaster when he was in the newspaper office and saw Louise's husband, Brently, on the list of those killed. Louise begins sobbing when Josephine tells her of Brently's death and goes upstairs to be alone in her room.Louise sits down and looks out an open window. She sees trees, smells approaching rain, and hears a peddler yelling out what he's selling. She hears someone singing as well as the sounds of sparrows, and there are fluffy white clouds in the sky. She is young, with lines around her eyes. Still crying, she gazes into the distance. She feels apprehensive and tries to suppress the building emotions within her, but can't. She begins repeating the word Free! to herself over and over again. Her heart beats quickly, and she feels very warm.Louise knows she'll cry again when she sees Brently's corpse. His hands were tender, and he always looked at her lovingly. But then she imagines the years ahead, which belong only to her now, and spreads her arms out joyfully with anticipation. She will be free, on her own without anyone to oppress her. She thinks that all women and men oppress one another even if they do it out of kindness. Louise knows that she often felt love for Brently but tells herself that none of that matters anymore. She feels ecstatic with her newfound sense of independence. Josephine comes to her door, begging Louise to come out, warning her that she'll get sick if she doesn't. Louise tells her to go away. She fantasizes about all the days and years ahead and hopes that she lives a long life. Then she opens the door, and she and Josephine start walking down the stairs, where Richards is waiting.The front door unexpectedly opens, and Brently comes in. He hadn't been in the train accident or even aware that one had happened. Josephine screams, and Richards tries unsuccessfully to block Louise from seeing him. Doctors arrive and pronounce that Louise died of a heart attack brought on by happiness.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings- by Maya Angelou- Summary

Maya Angelou describes her coming of age as a insecure black girl in the American South during the 1930s. Maya's parents divorce when she is only three years old and ship Maya and her older brother, Bailey, to live with their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, in rural Stamps, Arkansas. As young children, Maya and Bailey struggle with the pain of having been rejected and abandoned by their parents. Easter Sunday, Maya is unable to finish reciting a poem in church, and self-consciously feeling ridiculed and a failure, Maya races from the church crying, laughing, and wetting herself. When Maya is eight, her father, of whom she has no memory, arrives in Stamps unexpectedly and takes her and Bailey to live with their mother, Vivian, in St. Louis, Missouri. Beautiful and alluring, Vivian lives a wild life working in gambling parlors. One morning Vivian's live-in boyfriend, Mr. Freeman, sexually molests Maya, and he later rapes her. They go to court and afterward Mr. Freeman is violently murdered, probably by some the underground criminal associates of Maya's family. She also believes that she bears responsibility for Mr. Freeman's death because she denied in court that he had molested her prior to the rape. Believing that she has become a mouthpiece for the devil, Maya stops speaking to everyone except Bailey. To Maya's relief, but Bailey's regret, Maya and Bailey return to Stamps to live with Momma. Momma manages to break through Maya's silence by introducing her to Mrs. Bertha Flowers, a kind, educated woman who tells Maya to read works of literature out loud, giving her books of poetry that help her to regain her voice.Maya also observes the entire community listening to the Joe Louis heavyweight championship boxing match, desperately longing for him to defend his title against his white opponent. At age ten, Maya takes a job for a white woman who calls Maya "Mary" for her own convenience. Maya becomes enraged and retaliates by breaking the woman's fine china. At Maya's eighth grade graduation, a white speaker devastates the proud community by explaining that black students are expected to become only athletes or servants. When Maya gets a rotten tooth, Momma takes her to the only dentist in Stamps, a white man who insults her, saying he'd rather place his hand in a dog's mouth than in hers. The last straw comes when Bailey encounters a dead, rotting black man and witnesses a white man's satisfaction at seeing the body. Momma begins to fear for the children's well-being and saves money to bring them to Vivian, who now lives in California. When Maya is thirteen, the family moves to live with Vivian in Los Angeles and then in Oakland, California. When Vivian marries Daddy Clidell, a positive father figure, they move with him to San Francisco, the first city where Maya feels at home. She spends one summer with her father, Big Bailey, in Los Angeles and has to put up with his cruel indifference and his hostile girlfriend, Dolores. After Dolores cuts her in a fight, Maya runs away and lives for a month with a group of homeless teenagers in a junkyard. The account ends as Maya begins to feel confident as a mother to her newborn son.

Big Bailey Johnson - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Maya and Bailey's father. Despite his lively personality, he is handsome, vain, and selfish. He stands out among the other rural blacks because of his proper English and his flashy possessions.

Annie (momma) Henderson- I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Maya and Bailey's paternal grandmother. Momma raises them for most of their childhood. She owns the only store in the black section of Stamps, Arkansas.

Willie Johnson - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Momma's son, who is in his thirties. Injured in a childhood accident, Uncle Willie lives his entire life with Momma.

"Flowers for Algernon" themes

Negative AND positive consequences of knowledge Irony Knowledge is power

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings themes

Racism -fueled by fear and rooted in ignorance Family - mama Henderson = rock of family; parental abandonment Displacement - "the rust on the razor that threatens the throat"; sense of homelessness/ not belonging (frequent uprooting) Power of spoken word (you can torture a person, kill a person, but you can't kill his/her ideas) Naming (Maya, Marguerite, Mary) Power of languages/ literature Black pride (graduation scene) Cages - all trap/ confine the prisoner. Limit what the prisoner can achieve- Rasism, self-image(effects confidence), sexism/sexual abuse

"Story of an hour" themes

Societal expectations (Victorian age) Suppress woman Expected to be submissive to "hubby" Irony Foreshadowing (heart condition)

Yellow Wallpaper- Charlotte Perkins- Summary

The narrator begins her journal by marveling at the grandeur of the house and grounds her husband has taken for their summer vacation. She complains that her husband John, who is also her doctor, belittles both her illness and her thoughts and concerns in general. Her treatment requires that she do almost nothing active, and she is especially forbidden from working and writing. Her description is mostly positive, but disturbing elements such as the "rings and things" in the bedroom walls, and the bars on the windows, keep showing up. She is particularly disturbed by the yellow wallpaper in the bedroom, with its strange, formless pattern, and describes it as "revolting."She mentions that she enjoys picturing people on the walkways around the house and that John always discourages such fantasies.Just as she begins to see a strange sub-pattern behind the main design of the wallpaper, her writing is interrupted again, this time by John's sister, Jennie, who is acting as housekeeper and nurse. As her obsession grows, the sub-pattern of the wallpaper becomes clearer. It begins to resemble a woman "stooping down and creeping" behind the main pattern, which looks like the bars of a cage. Soon the wallpaper dominates the narrator's imagination. She becomes possessive and secretive, hiding her interest in the paper and making sure no one else examines it so that she can "find it out" on her own.The sub-pattern now clearly resembles a woman who is trying to get out from behind the main pattern. The narrator sees her shaking the bars at night and creeping around during the day, when the woman is able to escape briefly. The narrator mentions that she, too, creeps around at times. By the end, the narrator is hopelessly insane, convinced that there are many creeping women around and that she herself has come out of the wallpaper—that she herself is the trapped woman.

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

This vivid assertion ends the opening section of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.Although this section, which acts as a prologue, mostly emphasizes the point of view of Maya at five or six years old, this statement clearly comes from Angelou's adult voice. Looking back on her childhood experiences, Maya notes that she not only fell victim to a hostile, racist, and sexist society, but to other social forces as well, including the displacement she felt from her family and her peers.

Mr. Freeman - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Vivian's live-in boyfriend in St. Louis. When Maya and Bailey move to St. Louis, Mr. Freeman sexually molests and rapes Maya.

Daddy Clidell - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Vivian's second husband, whom she marries after her children join her in California.

Forming the plural for regular nouns

add -s or -es

compund nouns

add an -s or -es to the more important noun

Nouns that end in an s sound or letter

bus-> busses bix-> boxes

"A Telephone Call" themes

denial, rejection desperation double-standard- womans' place (expectations in society)

"Lady's Maid" themes

innocent, gullible, humble, meek, loyal (maid-low status) boss-manipulation personal happiness vs devotion, loyalty

Latin and greek origin nouns

us-> i a-> ae (like latin declention) alumnus alumni formula->formulae

Maya- I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

writes about her experiences growing up as a black girl in the rural South and in the cities of St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.