Week 10 、11 Midterm exam answer

Male Model | Kristov Pituk:


II、ID
1.In Cathedral by Raymond Carver,the blind man,Robert's wife, Beulah, was brought up by the quotation down below↓
And then I (narrator himself) thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led.Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one.A woman who could go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved(the blind man,Robert).
2.At the end of Cathedral,Robert asks the narrator to describe the cathedral that appears on television.Before this , the narrator has successfully described a parade in Spain  in which people were dressed as devils and skeletons ,but he doesn't have any idea how to describe a cathedral...Only by drawing the cathedral with his eyes closed can the narrator bridge the gap between seeing and understanding .
3.The term Roman fever was coined to describe in malaria, outbreaks of which occurred frequently in Rome over the centuries. It is an infectious disease cause by a single-celled parasite that enters the bloodstream primarily via the bite of the female anopheles mosquito.
4.Edith Wharton, the author of "Roman Fever",hints at the possibility that Barbara Ansley and Jenny Slade will repeat the actions of their mothers.She does so by creating the following parallels between Grace's daughter and Alida and between Alida's daughter and Grace: 
(1)Both girls are receiving the attentions of young man,as their mothers did twenty-five years ago
(2)One of the girls ,Barbara,is vivacious and very smart , as Alida was
(3)The other girl ,Jenny, is very beautiful otherwise ordinary,as Grace was.
(4)Barbara is likely to become the fiancee of a promising bachelor ,according to Alida.
She muses that "Babs would almost certainly engaged to the extremely eligible Campolieri".Twenty-five years before, Alida herself was engaged to a promising bachelor.
5.The action of"Roman Fever" takes places in  the afternoon evening on the terrace of a Roman restaurant with a view of the Forum ,and the colosseum. Suddenly she thought :"It is very well to say that our girls have done away with sentiment and moonlight..."  
6." Don't look so innocent, my dear ---You know he is,And I was wondering,ever so respectfully ,you understand...wondering how two such exemplary characters as you and Horace had managed to produce anything quite so dynamic.(Barbara)"Mrs. Slade laughed again ,with a touch of asperity(=bile=bitterness=harshness)
★How  do the three underlined words indicate the ambiguously intention between the speaker and Horace's wife?

★Paraphrase the underlined phrases in your own words
Emil Andersson. Gregori  Angel Name: Elisedd meaning kind  Demon Name: Lycus  meaning wolf  human name: Gabriel Wolfe:

7."Yes ,being  the Slade's widow was a dullish business after that .In living up to such a husband all her 〔Alida's〕faculties had been engaged; now she had only her daughter to live up to, for the son who seemed to inherited his father's gifts had died suddenly in boyhood. She had fought through that  agony  because her husband was there, to be helped  and to help; now ,after the father's death , the thought of the boy had become unbearable."

What is the meaning of the underlined words in the above paragraph from "Roman Fever"?


 The quote is important because of the insight in gives the reader the life of Mrs.Slade and how she is struggling with the changes in her social circumstances now that her husband has died.The precious paragraph  to the one quoted in this question explores this further as Mrs. Slade reminisces on her life and it is liked ,being married to an important man in the  society as Mr. Slade.
Now that  how the sentence introduces the massive contrast between her life and status before her husband's death, and after her husband's death,the difference being described unequivocally as being "irremediable".Now that her life becomes "a dullish business'',without the former distractions and duties that were the part of her identity ,old grief ,such as the death of her son,left free to the surface and haunt her.For such a woman who spent the majority of her life living up to various people ,having only her daughter to live up yo is a very hard proposition to face 

8. A speech: at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm on December 10 ,1950, William Faulkner delivered  a now famous speech.He is considered one of the most important writers of the Southern literature of the United States,along with Mark Twain ,Harper Lee, and Tennessee Williams.
9. Alive , Miss Emily had been a tradition , a duty, and a care; ˍˍˍˍˍˍ (the title of the story ), in section I, when the narrator describes Emily's funeral and history in the town.
The ˍˍˍˍˍˍ (blank )should e filled in "The Rose for Emily"
10."Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head.One of us lifted something from it , and leaning forward , that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostril , was a long strand of iron-gray hair " 
*Emily's secret ,finally revealed ,solidifies her reputation in the town as an eccentric.Her precarious mental state has led her to perform a grotesque act that surpasses the townspeople's wildest imaginings.Emily, although she deliberately sets up a solitary existence for herself , is unable to give up the man who have shaped her life,even after they have died.She hides her dead father for three days ,then permanently hides Homer Barron's body in the upstairs bedroom .In entombing her lover, Emily keeps her fantasy of martial bliss permanently intact.

★Identify the significance of the underlined phrases.(iron-gray hair)
(1)
The strand of hair is  reminder of love lost and the perverse things people do in pursuit of happiness.
The strand of iron-grey hair also reveals the inner life of a woman who,despite her eccentricities was committed to living life on her own terms and not submitting to her behavior ,no matter how shocking ,t the approval of others.
Emily subscribes to her own moral code and occupies the world of her own invention,where even the murder is permissible.
The narrator foreshadows the long strand of hair on the pillow when he describes the physical transformation Emily undergoes as she ages.Her hair grows more and more grizzled until it becomes "vigorous iron-grey".

The strand of hair ultimately stand as the vestige of the life left to languish and decay,much like the boy Emily's former lover.
11.The "rose" and " iron-gray hair " cited above could be an example of  irony .a rhetorical device, literally technique , or situation in which there is a sharp in congruity or discordance that goes beyond the  simple and evident intention of words or actions.
12.It was a big ,squarish( somewhat square in form or appearance, frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of seventies ,set on what and once been our most selected street.But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood... now Miss Emily had gone to joined the representatives of those august names where they  lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederated soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.
★Identify the significance of the repetitive "august names"
the word"august" here means distinguished , or important .That means that the august names in the town are the names of the  people who are important in this town.

In  this case , the term is used to refer to people who are dead .We are not told exactly who they are, but we do know that these were the people who built the houses in the rich neighborhood where Emily lived.It may be that they were the the slaveholders who were once rich ,but who lost much of their wealth after the Civil War.

13.The  lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact;
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic ,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The post's eye,in fine ,frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth,from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown,the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name

★Fill in the blank first to identify the specific kind of people that resemble some features with the lover and the poet for their imagination 

14. The above passage , quoted from William Shakespeare's  A Midsummer Night's Dream ,indicates the enticing intrigue of literature and imagination15. 
"In dark we lay on our beds, our narrow life rafts, and fixed our eyes on the faint light coming up the stairwell, and sang songs.Laird sang "Jingle Bells",which eh would sing anytime,whether it was Christmas or not, I sang "Danny Boy".I loved the  sound of my own voice, frail and supplicating , rising in the dark .We could make out the tall frosted shapes of the window now, gloomy and white..."
★Identify the name of the song, a ballad written by English song writer Frederic Weatherly and usually set  to Irish tone of the "Londonderry Air".It almost closely associated with Irish communities.

16.
The above citation is quoted from "Boys and Girls"by Alice Munro, A Canadian author whose work has been described as having revolutionized the architecture of short stories .She was awarded the Noble Prize in Literature in 2013
17. “She could of shut the gate and she didn’t. She just open it up and Flora run out.”
“Is that right?” my father said.
Everybody at the table was looking at me. I nodded, swallowing food with great difficulty. To my shame, tears flooded my eyes.
I did not answer. I put down my fork and waited to be sent from the table, still not looking up.
But this did not happen. For some time nobody said anything, then Laird said matter-of-factly,” She’s crying.”
“Never mind,” my father said. He spoke with resignation, even good humor, the words which absolved and dismissed me for good. “She’s only a girl,” he said.
I did not protest that, even in my heart. Maybe it was true.

Question: To your understanding, why does the girl not protest, even in her heart?
 The male is the dominant figure in the house ,while the women have to subservient.
The narrator has problems coming to terms with the role in her life that she was expected to lead.The narrator wanted to work outside with her father doing the work that she deemed important ,her mother tried to get narrator inside doing the work deemed appropriate for a lady.
However it was not something she enjoyed ,"I hated the dark hot kitchen in summer"The narrator was considered of any consequential help to her father simply because she was a female.
Though the narrator could do more than her younger brother,she still was a "a little bigger,then you will need a real help..."
18. …She was walking alone, always wearing the same beret, and always with the same white dog; no one knew who she was, and every one called her simply “the lady with the dog.”
★Identify the name of the woman.Anna Sergeyevna

19. He was under forty, but he had a daughter already twelve years old, and two sons at school. He had been married young, when he was a student in his second year, and by now his wife seemed half as old again as he. She was a tall, erect woman with dark eyebrows, staid and dignified, as she said of herself, intellectual. She read a great deal…and he secretly considered her unintelligent, narrow, inelegant, was afraid of her, and did not like to be at home.
Identify the name of the above character. Dimitri Gurov

20. And it seemed as though in a little while the solution would be found, and then a new and splendid life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that they had still a long, long road before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning.

The above citation is quoted from the final passage of one of Anton Chekhov’s most memorable short stories, ______ (title).The Lady with the Dog

II.Term Explanation(6)
1.fiction
any narrative ,especially in prose , about invented and imagined characters and action. Today ,we tend t divide fiction into three major subgenres based  on length: short stories , novella and novel.Older ,originally oral forms of short fiction include : parable ,fable , tale and legend.Fictional works may also be categorized not by their length but their handling of particular elements such as plot and characters .Detective and science fiction,for example ,are subgenres that include both novellas and novels such as Frank Herbert's "Dune"and short stories ,such as Edgar Allan Poe's "The murderers at the Rue Morgue"or Issac Asimov's "I ,Robert "
2.plot
an arrangement of actions.There are five parts or phases of action:
(1)exposition
(2)rising action
(3)climax / turning point
(4)falling action
(5)conclusion/ resolution
3. narration and point of view
narration→
(1)broadly , the act of telling a story or recounting a narrative
(2)more narrowly , the portions of a narrative attributable to the narrator rather than words spoken by the characters 
POV→the personage from which people ,events and other details in a work of fiction are viewed , also called "focus", though the term point of view usually includes both "focus" and "voice".
4.character:
an imaginary personage who acts, appears ,or is referred to in a literary work.Major or main characters are those that receive the most attention ,minor characters least.Flat characters are relatively simple,have dominant traits, and tend to be predictable .Conversely, round characters are complex and multifaceted and act in a way that the readers may not expect it but accept as possible.
Static characters do not change
dynamic characters change
stock characters represent familiar types  that recur frequently in literary works ,especially of a particular genre.For example→"mad scientist"of horror fiction and film and fool of Renaissance,especially Shakespearean drama
5.setting
the time and place in a work of fiction , poetry ,or drama.
(1)The spacial setting:a place f places in which action unfolds 
(2)The temporal setting: is the time(thus the same as "time plot")
It(temporal setting) sometimes is helpful to distinguish  between general setting and particular setting
(3)general setting: the general place or time in which all the actions unfold
(4)particular setting: the place and time in which particular episodes or scenes take place
The film version "Gone with the Winds",for example, is generally set in Civil War ----era  Georgia , while its opening  scene takes place on the porch of Tara, Scarlet O'Hara's family home, before the war begins.
6.theme
(1)broadly and commonly ,the topic explored in a literary work.
(2)more narrowly and properly, the insight about a topic communicated in  a work.
Most literary works have multiple themes ,though some people reverse the term "theme"for the certain or main insight and refer to others as "subthemes"
Usually , a theme is implicitly communicated by the work as a whole,rather than explicitly stated in it,though fables are an exception

III.Essay
1.What is literature
The American Heritage of English offers a number of definitions for the word "literature",one of which is "the imaginative or creative writing,especially of the recognized artistic value". We adopt the a version of this definition by focusing on fictional stories ,poems,ans plays,the three major genres of "the imaginative or creative writing" that form the heart of literature as it has been taught in schools and universities for over a century.Many of the works are already ones "of recognized artistic value"and thus belonged to what the scholars call the "canon",a select ,if much-debated and ever evolving ,list of the most highly and widely esteemed works.
Keats makes us see that literature as a "widely expanse" by making this metaphor and complementing it with similes likening reading to the sighting of a "new planet "and the first glimpse of the undiscovered ocean.Keats shows us what literature is and why it matters by allowing us to share with him our subjective experiences of reading and the complex sensation it inspires:
The dizzying exhilaration of discovery 
The sense of power  and accomplishment
The pride that come of achieving something difficult
The wonder we feel in those rare moments when a much-anticipated experience turns out to be even more greater than we had imagined it would be
Keats' friend and fellow,Poet Shelley,argued that literature increases a person's ability to "imagine intensely and comprehensively"and "put himself into the place of another or many other".People in order to "be greatly good".Shelley meant "good" in moral sense, reasoning that the ability both "to accurately imagine "and to truely feel the human consequences of our behaviors is the key to ethical behavior.
However,the universities and professional schools today also define this "good" in distinctively pragmatic ways.In virtually any career you choose ,you will need to interact positively and productively with coworkers and clients and in today's increasingly globalized world ,you will need to learn effectively and emphatically with people who are vastly different from you.
At the very least , literature written by people who came various backgrounds and depicting various places ,times ,experiences and feelings will give you some understanding of how others's lives and worldview that may differ from your own.
2.Roman Fever
The main conflict in Roman Fever is between Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley over Delphin Slade. When the two women were young, they were both in love with the same man ,who was engaged to Alida.The twist of this story is that actually Barbara was Mr. Slade's daughter.
The climax of this story comes as the two matrons sit watching the Roman sunset,recalling their first visit to Rome ,and both of them reveal the truths that shock the other.
When the two watching their daughter depart, old jealousies awakened ,as Mrs. Slade feels Mrs. Ansely like the two girls to accompany each other because her lackluster daughter ,Jenny ,as a foil to Grace's vivacious and charming daughter ,Barbara.
Once alone in the historic spot was thought to have been resolved ,in the climax Mrs. Slade boasts that she caused Grace Ansley to contract Roman fever by tricking her into going to the Colosseum by a forged letter from Delphin Slade,who later became her husband.Mrs. Ansley informs Mrs. Slade( Alida ) that she responded  that letter,and Delphin did, in fact, meet her. "I didn't have to wait that night."
The climax of their  animosity(hostility) reach its own resolution as the two women rise to turn to the hotel and Mrs .Ansely tells Mrs .Slade that she is sorry about her husband because she didn't have to wait after all ,that night so long ago, Alida Slade asks her why she feels sorry for her ,when she married Delphin and had everything.
 "I had him for twenty-five years and you had nothing but the letter he didn't write."
"I had Barbara!"says Mrs. Ansley and began to move ahead of Mrs.Slade toward the doorway.

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