Sample Exam Directions

Short Answer (50%)
Choose SIX of the following EIGHT questions and answer in 3-5 sentences. You should spend about 45-50 minutes on this section and it counts for 50% of your grade. Answer thoroughly and include detailed and specific reference to the course material being tested. Your answer must show knowledge of the texts in question.

Passage Analysis (25%)
The following passage is taken from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Read it carefully and then write a brief analysis in which you clearly explain what is happening or being described in this particular excerpt. Then relate the passage to the concerns and themes of the book in general, as presented in the lecture and developed in your discussion section. You should spend 30-35 minutes on this passage analysis. Your answer should cover two large blue book pages and could be even longer.

Essay Question (25%)
Choose ONE of the following TWO questions and answer it in a substantial essay that fills roughly three large blue book pages. Make specific reference in your answer to the texts in question, and to the lectures, class discussion or study questions, where relevant. You should spend 30-35 minutes on this section and it counts for 25% of your grade.

Exam Study Points

Final Exam Study Sheet: Please post questions below (in comments), so that I can address them either here or in class on Wednesday.

The Aristotle
Rene Descartes, The Meditations on First Philosophy
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Course Reader, chapters 8 (Analyzing Narrative), 9 (Comparison and Contrast), 10 (Application), and 11 (Genre)

ethos/pathos/logos
Aristotelian intermediacy, excellence
Hylomorphism, soul (mind/body)
material, formal, efficient, formal causes
causal analysis
Sense deception, error
Doubt (dream hypothesis, “evil genius”)
Epistemology/Ontology
Meditation
Objective reality/formal reality
Imagining/Sensing/Perceiving
Will
Intellect, Understanding
Difference between mind and body for Descartes
Thesis #1: “Descartes is again looking for answers not to the world outside but to his interior thinking experience.”
“clearly and distinctly”
irony
assessment/judgment
persuasion
gentry
satiric field
direct discourse/indirect discourse/free indirect discourse/compression of discourse
sentiments/sensations
genre
narrative/narration
social commentary/satire
comedy
Kellynch Hall—from gentry estate to naval family
Aristocracy/meritocracy
Thinking against Austen—fact vs. fiction, creation of empire, defense of Navy
Unthinkability of novel and imperialism without each other
Interiority
Induction
Application
Transitions and development: “articulating a difference from what has been said before while
also establishing a connection.”
The good of a novel
Epistemological confidence
The body as condition of existence
Gesture
Racial self-contempt
Narrative voice/tone
Suffering/trauma
Madness
interiorization/internalization

raising questions

Photo: Dreamland Theater, Lorain Ohio

1. What is Morrison trying to do by titling the parts of the Breedlove’s life with various parts of the "Jane" story?

2. Why does Pecola and Freida admire Shirley Temple?

3. Why does Mr. Yacobowski find it hard to look at Pecola?

4. What is the significance of switching the narrative’s point of view?

5. Why is Pecola still unsatisfied even after she got her "blue eyes?" Why does she want them to be the bluest?

6. How are Persuasion, Meditations on First Philosophy, and The Bluest Eye related?

7. One of the main themes in the novel The Bluest Eye is the racism
against and oppression of colored people, yet there are not many instances
in the novel where white people directly show racism. What aspect of the
book makes it racist?

8. What is the significance of the "perfect family" of Father, Mother, Dick, and Jane in The Bluest Eye. What does it serve as?

9. What seems to be the dominant gender in the novel and why? Give specific examples from the novel along with comparisons and contrasts to support your answer.

10. Are the first-person narrators reliable or unreliable (provide evidence)? What does this contribute or take away from the story?

11. How does the Jane/Dick/Mom/Dad story help convey the themes of the novel?

12. What roles do eyes (in general) play throughout the novel? Look for specific text citations.

13. Near the end of the novel, Pecola has a conversation with an unknown person/voice about her new blue eyes. Who do you think this voice is, and what might it represent?

14. Claudia and Frieda try to help Pecola, but after the baby dies, they stop talking to her. Why?

15. Why does Claudia dismember the dolls she is given, and why do the adults get so upset with her for it?

16. Why does Pecola like drinking milk?

17. Why does Pecola visit Soaphead Church, and what does the dog named Bob relate to them?

18. Who is Maureen Peal?

19. Does Toni Morrison ask us to identify with one form of consciousness throughout the novel or many? Explain.

20. What is "epistemological confidence" in relation to Morrison's The Bluest Eye?

21. What is the significance of the Boys on the street corner flicking ash from their cigarette butts and what does the gesture expose about them?
22. What is beauty? What is beauty to Claudia?

23. Maureen Peal came into Claudia's and Frieda's life. How did this person affect their lives?

24. What do you think of Pecola's method of relieving herself after watching her parents fight?

stories within stories

Black Doll White Doll by Kiri Davis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybDa0gSuAcg
Kiri Davis, a 17-year old high school student and maker of the short film, A Girl Like Me, re-enacts doll test given to children during the 1950's Brown vs. Board of Education Case.

What is the significance of intertextuality and allusion? What other examples can you think of in The Bluest Eye?

Imitation of Life: a movie watched by Maureen Peal and by her mother some four times or so...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imitation_of_Life_(1934_film)

Week Ten: Assignments

Lorain, Ohio 1933. Palace Theater at Broadway and 6th. photo: Black River Historical Society

for Sunday December 2: email me 3 study questions on Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye.

Office Hours this week:
Monday 10-11 (HIB 194)
Monday 1:30-2:45 (Cyber-A Cafe)
Wednesday 12-1 (HIB 194)
***I will be available at other times on both Monday and Wednesday if you would like to schedule an appointment to talk about your essay, your grade, or the exam.

Monday, December 3
Reading: finish The Bluest Eye
Writing: continue to revise essay #3

Wednesday, December 5
Reading: Final Exam Review Sheet (on blog), make comments if you have questions
Writing: Essay #3 due (all drafts, peer review drafts must be turned in, upload essay to www.turnitin.com)

Reminder: Final Exam Monday December 10, 4:00-6:00 (no exam Friday December 13)

epistemological confidences

Let’s consider Austen’s characters as “epistemological postulates”: modes of observing, perceiving, processing, and judging the world, especially the social world and other characters’ thoughts and feelings.

Consider each of the characters below as a distinct type of “thinking machine.” For each character, answer the questions following and be prepared to give textual evidence (suggested pages to examine are provided, though you can look at other passages):

• Louisa (pp. 116-7)
• Captain Wentworth (pp. 98-99)
• Admiral Croft (p. 151)
• Anne (pp. 111-113; many other suitable passages)
• Mary (p. 108)
• Captain Benwick (pp. 129-30)

1. Who or what is this character’s attention most drawn to? What type of information or source of information is most important for him/her?

2. Is this character more involved in thinking, feeling, or some combination of the two?

3. What kinds of judgments does this character arrive at (e.g., cognitive, practical, moral, aesthetic)? Does the character make judgments about him- or herself, others, the world at large? What is the object of his/her judgments?

4. What judgment does the narrator seem to make about this character and his/her thought/feeling process? Consider the character’s possible alliance with the narrator or his/her placement in the “satiric field.” Also consider the character’s ultimate fate in the novel.

5. How does this judgment connect to Austen’s larger purpose in the novel (as satire, social commentary, comedy)?

(adapted from Catherine Winarski)

"But the dismembering of dolls was not the true horror."

insert yourself...

which of the following papers would you most want to read?

Meditations on First Philosophy
Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy (2)
Descartes’ View on Judgement
Descartes’ God
Descartes’ Doubts
Descartes’ Meditations
The Reasoning Behind Descartes
Descartes Defined Through the Mind
Descartes on Perfection
Descartes and God
Descartes and Reason
The Mechanism of God
The Entity of God
Existence, Descartes, and God
God’s Significance in Meditations on First Philosophy
God in Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy
Perfection is Overrated
Living Free

titles: creative + : + substance

sample theses

sample from Class 11/26:
"The importance of these changes is that in the second ending, the level of interiority for each character is greatly increased, allowing the reader to identify more strongly with each character and become more interested in the eventual outcome of the story."

Commentary:
the evaluation: shows/tells which ending is better (good, subtle implication)
the focus: what the "issue" is (in this and in most WD's this will need further development)
induction: tells what new thing the writer has discovered about the issue (this claim does not do this yet. it merely tells us: "the resolution was good." this part should make some argument about how "the issue" of focus is resolved).

From Linda Bree, in the introduction:
"By bringing other characters to Bath, and creating two key scenes at a hotel where various characters can come and go, meet and overhear, miss, or misunderstand each other, Austen is able not only to resolve the romance between Anne and Wentworth, but to embed this personal relationship firmly within the larger themes she has been developing: of the importance of spontaneity over calculation, and friendship over family, and of the roles, conventions, and choices of men and women in the early years of the nineteenth century."

Commentary:
the evaluation: shows/tells which ending is better (subtle, descriptive)
the focus: what the "issue" is (here: all these themes--interesting, generative, too numerous for 4-page essay)
induction: tells what new thing the writer has discovered about the issue--does Bree tell us something about how the issue(s) are resolved?

who are dick and jane?

from period children's books at the time

Q 20

Some of the subtleties of Anne’s character might not be explicitly stated. Other aspects of her character might be implied through comparison with other characters in the novel. The same goes for other characters in the novel as well. In the following description of the Musgroves, what character traits are attributed to being “modern”? What does imply about Anne’s own relationship to the changing times? How does this give us some insight into Anne’s thinking?

“The Musgroves, like their houses, were in a state of alteration, perhaps of improvement. The father and mother were in the old English style, and the young people in the new. Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove were a very good sort of people; friendly and hospitable, not much educated, and not at all elegant. Their children had more modern minds and manners. There was a numerous family; but the only two grown up, excepting Charles, were Henrietta and Louisa, young ladies of nineteen and twenty, who had brought from school at Exeter all the usual stock of accomplishments, and were now, like thousands of other young ladies, living to be fashionable, happy, and merry.” (77-78)

Q 19

In the following passage, Austen develops one of the novel’s major concepts. What is it? Who is the narrator commenting on? How does it make a commentary on the character of Anne and Captain Wentworth?

“Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him, that, like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness, as a very resolute character” (143-144)

Q 18

18. Most of these questions and most of the lecture material involve us in thinking with Austen. What might it mean to think against Austen?

Q 17

17. How would you sum up the importance of the navy in this novel? What do you make of Anne’s new “profession” (258)?

Q 16

16. What is Anne’s one regret at the end of the novel (257-8)?

Q 15

15. What do you make of Wentworth’s letter (245-6)?

Q 14

14. What does Mrs. Smith know about Mr. Elliot (210 ff)?

Q 13

13. Why does Anne compare herself with Mrs. Larolles? Who is Mrs. Larolles (206)?

Q 12

12. There are several occasions of overhearing: Anne overhears Wentworth and Louisa Musgrove; Anne overhears Mrs. Clay and Elizabeth and Sir Walter; Wentworth overhears Anne and Captain Harville. Why might overhearing be important?

Q 11

11. In the introduction to his The Improvement of the Estate (1971; rpt. with new introduction, 1994), Alistair Duckworth says--

Mrs. Smith . . . is important as the final embodiment of a fate that haunts all [Austen's] novels. Here at the last is the entirely unsupported woman, reduced to bare existence without husband, society or friends. Though she appears at the end of Jane Austen's writing life, Mrs. Smith has always existed as a latent possibility in the novelists' thought, an unvoiced threat, the other possible pole of existence. Meeting her old friend after twelve years, Anne Elliot comes face to face with her own possible fate. . . . For this is the danger facing many of Jane Austen's heroines, that present security may become total isolation, that residence 'in the centre of their property' in the enjoyment of 'the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance ' may be exchanged for life 'in lodgings' without the money even 'to afford . . . the comfort of a servant.'"

What do you think of this interpretation of Mrs. Smith? Try pulling together all the details about her and then ask yourself how you would interpret her significance to the novel. (The evidence begins with p. 173.)

Q 10

10. Notice that the transition to Bath is made by a mental comparison. What do you think that implies about this novel (147)?

Q 9

9. Does it take a set of sisters like Mary and Elizabeth to create an Anne?