English 150: Final Exam study guide
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[edit] English 150: Final Exam Study Guide
[edit] Some general points to keep in mind:
- This study guide is not cumulative but the final exam will be cumulative with special attention given to the material we covered after the midterm.
- To get full credit for an ID you need to give the name, date, title and (if applicable) episode name or number of the text in question.
- Answers that deal directly with the passage you’re meant to id and broad themes coming out of the text generally receive more credit than those that either just explicate the passage or only talk about the general plot of the text in question.
- You can email me if you have questions or concerns about the final, however, if you have a question over the weekend that needs urgent answering, give me a call at 689-7285 since I don’t have email at my house.
[edit] Sample IDs
1. yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life (Ulysses, "Penelope" Episode)
2. Her mother had stiven to speak unfinished words. And she, she now would no be able to say that which she had come to say. (Down by the River, p. 56)
3. heteroglossia
4. And on the music stand of the piano the ass and car going off into the mountains of Emerald Gems of Ireland. It was a nice warm room with an amber glow that reached out to you and beckoned you in. Come on in, it said, so I thought maybe I would (The Butcher Boy, p. 55)
5. Face reminds me of his poor mother. In that shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen him….(…Against the dark wall a figure appears slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton sit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his hand…) (Ulysses, "Circe" Episode)
6. Jane Austen’s vision of the world and the goals of her (female) characters or "the family romance plot"
7. I never thought Joe would ask that I never thought he would have to ask that but he did din’t he and when I heard him say it that was when I started to feel myself draining away and I couldn’t stop it the more I tried the worse it got I could have floated to the ceiling like fag paper please Joe come with me that was all I wanted to say dumb people have hoes in the it of their stomachs and that’s the way I was now the dumbest person in the whole world who had no words left for anything at all. (The Butcher Boy, p. 203)
8. Stream of consciousness writing
9. The importance of the year 1922 for Ireland (culturally and politically)
10. Decent fellow Joe when he had it but sure like that he never had it. Jesus, I couldn’t get over that bloody foxy Geraghty, the daylight robber. For trading without a license, says he.
In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as in life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. (Ulysses, "Cyclops" Episode)
11. Ahead of them the road runs in a long entwined undulation of mud, patched tar and fjords of green, the grassy surfaces rutted and trampled, but the young shoots surge in the sun; flowers and flowering weeds in full regalia (Down by the River, p. 1)
12. the flaneur
13. He thinks?
Certainly. Aloud. He even used to think very prettily once, I could listen to him for hours. Now…(he shudders) So much the worse for me. Well, would you like him to think something for us? (Waiting for Godot, Act 1)
[edit] General Questions
1. Many contemporary literary critics have asserted that for men and women living in the aftermath of colonization, the ability to speak about one’s experience as the colonized subject is crucial for recovery. In many of the texts we’ve read this quarter, authors have been preoccupied with issues surrounding speaking, numbness, and disempowerment. Discuss three texts in which authors have made the (in)ability to speak one of the crucial themes of their text and explain how you think the authors have related the act of speaking to their character’s status as Irish men or women.
2. We’ve discussed the effect of the absence of a maternal figure in books we’ve read thus far. What can we make of the absent of strong paternal or father figures in books we’ve read in the second half of the course? Discuss three father figures from texts we’ve read this quarter and how their strengths or weaknesses figure into the plot of each respective text.
3. The title of this course is "Imagining Irishness." How have three authors from the second half of the course imagined or invented an idea of Irishness in their work? If we were to contrast the books we’ve read after the midterm with earlier texts we’ve read, what would you say are the differences and similarities between them in regards to constructing an idea of Irishness?
