Select one of the following topics to discuss in 1-2 paragraphs. Although you aren’t expected to quote directly from the text, be as specific as you can.The more references you can make to the actual texts being discussed, the more points you will earn. Make sure you number your answer to indicate which question you are working with. 1. Throughout this semester, we have seen characters who were outcasts, struggling to live by or rebelling against the socially accepted “norms” of American society at that time. Select three characters, one from each time period covered in the class (one each from volumes C, D, and E), and discuss how this character struggled to fit in with or struggled against American society. What do these three characters have in common? Is the notion of being an outcast as American as any of the more traditional views of American life? Make sure you refer specifically to events in the literature. 2. The term “postmodern” has been used to represent a variety of ideas and styles. Many agree that postmodern literature is fragmented and experimental. The term “postmodern” can be used to describe “practically anything aesthetically edgy or off-kilter, anything that bends genres or cultural registers,” and postmodern works have been described as being filled with “ambiguity and uncertainty . . . shifts between satire and sincerity.” Consider two works from the “Literature Since 1945” selections that fit these definitions/explanations of postmodern literature. Explain how the works fit the definitions,  and refer as specifically as possible to the literature. 3. Tennessee Williams is often listed alongside authors like William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor as a southern gothic writer. Southern gothic writers tend to create grotesque, alienated characters whose physical and/or psychological abnormalities, sexual proclivities, or violent temperaments alienate them from each other and society. Often alienation results from a clash between a mythic and idealized southern past and a modern present. Discuss a character from A Streetcar Named Desire which typifies the southern gothic tradition. Then, compare Williams’ character with another character by another southern gothic writer we read this semester. What similarities do you recognize? What differences? Make sure you reference specific passages from both works.

This playwright was born in Columbus, Mississippi and lived in New Orleans as a young man and often used these locations as setting in his plays.

What happens to the married couple the narrator meets at the beginning of “Schrodinger’s Cat”? 

Why do the Spiegelmans want to escape to Hungary?

How does Vladek convince the children in Sosnowiec that he is not Jewish?

Why does Zinhle’s mother suggest she become pregnant?

What news about Stella does Stanley reveal to Blanche when they are discussing Belle Reve in scene two?

In “Good Country People,” why had Mrs. Hopewell hired the Freemans?

For five of the following spot quotes, identify the author (1 point) and title (1 point) and discuss the significance (Complete sentences, 2 points) of this passage. Number each answer to indicate which quote you are working with.  I will only grade the first five answered. (4 pts. each) 1. Her face was almost purple. “You’re a Christian!” she hissed. “You’re a fine Christian! You’re just like them all—say one thing and do another. You’re a perfect Christian, you’re . . .” The boy’s mouth was set angrily. “I hope you don’t think,” he said in a lofty indignant tone, “that I believe in that crap! I may sell Bibles but I know which end is up and I wasn’t born yesterday and I know where I’m going!” 2. “Four women. I guess those women didn’t have the faintest notion at the time they’d be worth a hundred an’ twenty-five bucks apiece some day to Mrs. Pike. We ast her how old the fella was then, an’s she says he musta had one foot in the grave, at least. Can you beat it?”  3. . . .I never met a woman yet that didn’t know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and some of them give themselves credit for more than they’ve got. I once went out with a doll who said to me, “I am the glamorous type, I am the glamorous type!” I said, “so what?”  4. I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!—Don’t turn the light on!  5.      Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which  way does your beard point tonight?             (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and  feel absurd.)             Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be lonely.   6. Out of the huts of history’s shameI rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.   7.  She hates him. Less than she should, because he is not as much of an enemy as she thought. But she still hates him, for making her choice so explicit. “Or stay yourself,” he says. “If they can’t adapt to you, and you won’t adapt to them, then you’d be welcome among us. Flexibility is part of what we are.”              8. “ . . .So! If the photon passes through, the trigger will be activated and the gun will fire. If the photon is deflected, the trigger will not be activated and the gun will not fire. Now, you put the cat in. The cat is in the box. You close the lid. You go away! You stay away! What happens?” Rover’s eyes were bright.            “The cat gets hungry?”

Why does the dog want to put the cat in the box?