EH 224 Santiago Final Exam

"lukewarm water"

"we think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it" Gwendolyn Brooks writes of lukewarm water in her poem "kitchenette building." One of the neighbors has just come out of the shared bathroom, and the residents are all hopeful for a lukewarm shower because that's the best they can hope for.

Bureau of Indian Affairs

A U.S. government agency charged with assisting the tribal authorities of reservations. The BIA policeman take away Ayah's children in "Lullaby"

Maggie

A bow-legged mute woman who worked in the kitchen at St. Bonny's in Toni Morrison's Recitatif. Twyla and Roberta have conflicting memories about Maggie's ethnicity and about what happened to her in the orchard.

Memoir

A historical account or biography written from personal knowledge or special sources "Maus"

Foreshadowing

A narrative device that hints at coming events. This is used in Daniel Orozco's "Orientation" when the narrator references how the receptionists always leave. We later find out the reason they always leave (because Barry Hacker's wife haunts them)

Sears

American department store chain. It is the location in which the grandmother of the narrator in "My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears" washes her feet.

Vladek

Art Spiegelman's father, whose experiences during the Holocaust are chronicled in Maus.

Chato

Ayah's husband in Silko's "Lullaby". She has to go looking for him at the bar.

"Orientation"

Daniel Orozco

"kitchenette building"

Gwendolyn Brooks

"the mother"

Gwendolyn Brooks

"Going to Meet the Man"

James Baldwin

"Drown"

Junot Díaz

"How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie"

Junot Díaz

Telenovela

Latin American television soap operas. In "Woman Hollering Creek," the main character Cleofilas grew up watching telenovelas and desires the kind of passion and romance they portray in her own life.

"Persimmons"

Li-Young Lee

"Dear John Wayne"

Louise Erdrich

"My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears"

Mohja Kahf

"Woman Hollering Creek"

Sandra Cisneros

"At Navajo Monument Valley Tribal School"

Sherman Alexie

"Crow Testament"

Sherman Alexie

La llorona

The weeping woman. She is a ghost of Mexican legend who drowned her children and was fated to an eternity of crying and searching for them in the river.

"Recitatif"

Toni Morrison

American Standard

a North American plumbing manufacturer. Mohja Kahf makes a play on words based on this manufacturer in her poem "My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears," describing the white women's view of her grandmother's actions as a "contamination of American Standards"

Kevin Howard

a character in Daniel Orozco's "Orientation." He is a serial killer, also known as the "Carpet Cutter."

Anika Bloom

a character in Daniel Orozco's "Orientation." Her psychic premonitions make everyone else in the office wary of her. She tells Barry Hacker when and how his wife will die and is correct in her prediction.

"Chocolate Thunder"

a giant vibrator featured in Sherman Alexie's "Do Not Go Gentle." The vibrator is used as a magic wand over all of the dying children by the story's narrator, and it is used as mobile over his own baby's crib when the boy pulls through.

Samson

a judge of Israel with special hair who performed herculean feats of strength against the Philistines until he was betrayed to them by his mistress Delilah. Mentioned in Sam Sax's "Poem in Which the Writer Sees Himself in an Old Textbook"

2nd-person narration

a mode of narration in which the narrator tells the story to another character using the word "you," making the reader feel like a part of the narrative. Junot Diaz uses this narrative style in "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie." The narrator gives relationship advice/instructions to the reader. The second person narration makes the story feel like an instructional manual.

Felice

character in "Woman Hollering Creek" by Sandra Cisneros. Her name means Happy. She helps Cleofilas escape her situation by giving her a ride in her pickup. The sense of freedom Felice embodies amazes and inspires Cleofilas.

Beat Poets

group of American writers in the 1950s who started a literary movement questioning mainstream politics and culture. Allen Ginsburg, author of "Howl," is an example of a Beat Poet.

Mosquitos

insects that are described as coming in hordes at the drive-in movie by Louise Erdrich in "Dear John Wayne"

Harlem Renaissance

intellectual, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York; Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks?

Government Cheese

processed cheese given through public assitance programs. In Junot Diaz's "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie," the narrator instructs the reader to hide the government cheese in the fridge before bringing a girl over because it is indicative of socioeconomic status.

Ayah

protagonist in Silko's "Lullaby". Her children are taken from her and she resents her husband for teaching her to sign her name.

-phile

suffix meaning one that loves, likes, or is attracted to. Samson

Anthropomorphism

the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to an animal or object; the characters in Art Spiegelman's Maus are anthropomorphic because human people (himself, his father, other Jews) are portrayed as mice with human feelings and experiences. Other historically significant races/people are portrayed as other kinds of animals.

The Holocaust

the genocide of two thirds of the Jewish population of Europe by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus relays his Jewish father's exeperiences during this time period.

Essentialist

the idea that people have inherent qualities that are fixed. This idea is exemplified in Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets," when the main character's mother tells her that being Chinese is "in her blood."

Yunior

the protagonist and narrator of Drown.

Anaphora

the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. This

Donna

the speaker's lover in Li-Young Lee's "Persimmons." He teaches her Chinese while they make love.

Mrs. Walker

the teacher in Li-Young Lee's "Persimmons". She punishes the narrator for confusing English words and demonstrates her ignorance later in bringing a persimmon to class and describing it as a "Chinese apple"

Temporal Setting

when the setting is the same in which the work was written.