Midterm

rising action

A series of events that builds from the conflict. It begins with the inciting force and ends with the climax.

Why is the title of "Hills Like White Elephants" symbolic?

A white elephant is something nobody wants which symbolizes the unborn child they do not want. The girl also says the hills surrounding the station look like white elephants which starts the abortion discussion, she later takes that comment back symbolizing she may want to keep the child.

Goody Cloyse (young goodman brown)

A witch, represents not every man can be trusted

internal rhyme

A word inside a line rhymes with another word on the same line

Faith ("Young Goodman Brown")

Appears pure hearted, causes Goodman Brown to believe in absolute evil in everyone. Faith represents Goodman's beliefs.

What change does Jimmy Cross undergo from the beginning to the end of the story and why? How does this relate to the theme?

At the beginning of the story Lt Cross seemed to comfort his emotion with his lucky pebble and his love for Martha, this shows he had deep personal emotions. At the end of the story Jimmy Cross burns the letters and pictures and gets rid of the pebble, sacrificing the things he loved to take on more responsibility for his men's lives. He goes from being distracted and wanting love, to being fully responsible and undistracted. This relates to the theme because you see that the burden of war and his responsibility is stronger than his own love and hope.

Shakespearean sonnet and Petrarchan sonnet SIMILARITIES

Both have 14 lines and both have a set meter/distinct rhyme scheme.

Author of "Hills Like White Elephants"

Ernest Hemingway

falling action

Events after the climax, leading to the resolution

Author of "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Flannery O'Connor

Deacon Gookin (young Goodman brown)

Follower of Goody Cloyse, represents that the church can't be trusted

The Minister (young Goodman brown)

Follower of deacon gookin, shows church can't be trusted

Goodman Brown ("Young Goodman Brown")

His belief is easy to change

In "The Things They Carried", what are two intangible items specific men carried? Why are they relevant?

Jimmy Cross- Lt. Cross carried the responsibility of his men's lives. This is important in the story because he felt as if it was his fault that Ted Lavender died, he said he loved Martha more than he loved his men and blamed himself. This shows the toll his responsibilities had on him. Ted Lavender- Ted Lavender carried fear. This is important in the story because, though he takes extra precautions due to the fear, he dies unexpectedly and essentially causes Lt. Jimmy Cross to sacrifice the things he loves to protect his men.

In "The Things They Carried", what are two tangible items specific men carried? Why are they relevant?

Jimmy Cross- Lt. Cross carries letters from Martha. This is important in the story because his love for her essentially causes one of his men, Ted Lavender, to die. The death causes Jimmy to sacrifice the things important to him. Ted Lavender- Ted Lavender carries tranquilizers and extra bullets. This is important in the story because it shows his fear and what he uses to calm that fear did not save him in the end.

In "A Good Man is Hard to Find", who are two people the grandmother considered good men and why? Why is this ironic?

Red Sammy- he complains about letting a man charge his gas and not paying it back, grandmother says he is a good man because he blindly trusts people and is nostalgic about more innocent times, which the grandmother relates to. The Misfit- essentially calls him a good man to keep him from killing her. She calls him good because she assumes he won't kill a lady, to grandmother being a lady is a significant part of what the grandmother considers moral. This is ironic overall because the grandmothers definition of a "good man" doesn't mean someone is good or kind, but it means their values match her own.

Foot

Repeated sequence of rhythm, two or more stressed and/ or unstressed syllables

Consonance

Repetition of consonant sounds (flash, flesh)

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds (the light of the fire is a sight)

end rhyme

Rhyme that occurs at the end of two or more lines of poetry

perfect rhyme

Rhymes involving sound that are exactly the same (ex: love, dove)

Plot

Sequence of events in a story

Shakespearean sonnet and Petrarchan sonnet DIFFERENCES

Shakespearean: First introduced in the 16th century. Has 3 quatrains and 1 couplet. Petrarchan: First introduced in the 11th century. Has two parts, an octet and a sestet.

In "Battle Royal", what are 3 times where the inability to see or be seen play into the story? How do they relate to each other and the overall theme of the story?

The black boys were blinded during the battle and they felt like they had no choice but to fight, which is what the white men wanted. The white blindfold in the battle represents the white men blinding him & making him vulnerable— literally (during the battle) and figuratively (in life). The narrator is completely blindsided by the battle, but is ready to impress the white men when giving his speech. Nobody is impressed by the speech simply because he is black. During the narrators speech the white men are yelling and talking, they constantly ask him to repeat himself—this makes him feel invisible to the white man. The white men did not care nor try to recognize his talent. These are all important to the over all theme,of the story because the white men make him feel blinded and invisible, but they are really the blind ones. Their prejudice is blindness and until they are able to see black men as humans, black men will continue being invisible.

In "Battle Royal", why are blindness and invisibility reoccurring motifs?

They are reoccurring because because the narrator feels blinded by the white people and invisible to the white people, but the white men are the blind ones in the story—they aren't able to see his talent which shows their thoughtlessness.

In "A Good Man is Hard to Find" the Misfit says, "She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life". Why is this significant?

This quote is significant because in the last moments of her life the grandmother understands where she has gone wrong in her life and instead of thinking she is better than everybody, she realizes her flaws. She tells the Misfit that he is one of her own children, showing she found the ability to understand others. In the last moments of her life, she was a good person. This relates to the theme of the story because the theme is essentially 'unlikely receivers of grace' and the grandmother was a bad person her entire life, but in the last moments of her life she received grace by realizing her faults & becoming a "good" person.

How does the setting in "Hills Like White Elephants" hell illuminate the conflict?

This story is set at a train station to show that the relationship between the two is at crossroads and idea that the station isn't a final destination shows they must make a decision on whether or not to continue their relationship.

Author of "The Things They Carried"

Tim O'Brien

slant rhyme

rhyme in which the vowel sounds are nearly, but not exactly the same (i.e. the words "stress" and "kiss"); sometimes called half-rhyme, near rhyme, or partial rhyme

Spondee

stressed, stressed

Trochee

stressed, unstressed

dactyl

stressed, unstressed, unstressed

Protagonist

the main character in a literary work

Alliteration

the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. (Sally Sells Seashells)

Rhyme scheme

the ordered pattern of rhymes at the ends of the lines of a poem or verse.

round character

this character is fully developed - the writer reveals good and bad traits as well as background

Iamb

unstressed, stressed

Anapest

unstressed, unstressed, stressed

Exposition

A narrative device, often used at the beginning of a work that provides necessary background information about the characters and their circumstances.

reliable narrator

A narrator that appears to be trustworthy and would have no outside interests to protect. Usually a 3rd person narrator, but not always.

Meter

A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry

flat character

A character who is not very well developed; has few identifiable characteristics

What are possible symbolic meanings for Jimmy Cross's name? How do they relate to the theme?

"Jimmy Cross" could be seen as a Christ figure because he is a leader and responsible for his men's lives. Christ had the burden of the cross for the eternal lives of his believers—which was his sacrifice for his people; Jimmy Cross sacrificed all the things he loved & the things that represented him—his pebble, his letters, and pictures, so he could take more responsibility for his men's lives. Also, his initials are JC (Jesus Christ). The theme of the story is physical and emotional burdens and how they effected the men and Jimmy Cross had the biggest burdens, burdens that affected his entire character. He also took on his men's burdens which relates to Jesus Christ.

Trimeter

3 feet per line

Tetrameter

4 feet per line

Antagonist

A character or force in conflict with the main character

static character

A character that does not change from the beginning of the story to the end

dynamic character

A character who grows, learns, or changes as a result of the story's action

Foil

A character who is in most ways opposite to the main character (protagonist) or one who is nearly the same as the protagonist. The purpose of the foil character is to emphasize the traits of the main character by contrast only

Climax

Most exciting moment of the story; turning point

Author of "Young Goodman Brown"

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Author of "Battle Royal"

Ralph Ellison

In "Paul's Case" what is the dark place referring to in the quote "there had always been the shadowed corner, the DARK PLACE into which he dared not to look, but from which something always seemed to be watching him—and Paul had done things that were not pretty to watch, he knew."

The dark place is referring to his depression or his homosexuality

What is the significance of the flowers in "Paul's Case"?

The red carnations represent Paul (at the beginning of the story Paul wears a red carnation in his buttonhole & the teachers interpret it as his defiance, at the end of the story he buys red carnations and buries them in the snow before committing suicide) the flowers he sees on his way to New York growing under the glass represent his attempt to be something he is not (he said the natural growing flowers are ugly, showing he hates flowers in their natural state)

"Young Goodman Brown" setting

The story takes place in a village and forest outside of Salem, the majority of it at night. The story was historically set during the Salem witch trials; the historical time is important because it's a story of his man losing his faith because he saw the witches. It's is set at night and in a forest to add to the "dark" or "witch" theme, a dark forest is typically where people saw witches during the trials.

What is the theme of the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop? Give 3 details to support your answer.

The theme is loss. Bishop discusses things she has lost—her watch, keys, places, and more. Bishop repeats "the art of losing isn't hard to master". Bishop repeats that losing things isn't a disaster.

How do characteristics of the form of Donald Justice's "Pantoum of the Great Depression" compliment the theme?

The theme is survival and emptiness. A pantoum is a good form for recalling a memory because it is not straight forward (relates to theme because he is recalling his feelings during the time and appreciating his survival). Donald Justice uses words like "tragedy", "catastrophe", and "sorrows" to show the sadness and emptiness he felt during the time (relates to the theme because he is discussing the negative way everybody felt, but says they avoided the tragedy). The pantoum does not end and begin with the same line, the first line is "our lives avoided tragedy" and the last line is "and there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry." —instead he repeats the first line in the second to last line, saying "but it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy" (this shows the emptiness he felt during the time, but also clarifies that he was able to survive it)

Author of "Paul's Case"

Willa Cather

Pentameter

a line of verse consisting of five metrical feet

unreliable narrator

a narrator whose account of events appears to be faulty, misleadingly biased, or otherwise distorted

Narrator

a speaker or character who tells a story

denouement

an outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot