Midterm Exam Review

Sample Questions: Part B

Spring 2009

 

 

ü  For each of the following, agree, agree in part, or disagree. Each answer should be a fully developed paragraph (5-8 sentences); use quotes from the text to support your answer.

 

Achebe:

 

  1. In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe demonstrates how indigenous communities are able to survive colonial influences.
  2. Chinua Achebe is a prototypical Romantic writer. Evil, his text Things Fall Apart suggests, is inextricably linked to urbanization.
  3. Like Billy Budd , Things Fall Apart is a realistic text.

 

Melville:

 

  1. With a heavy heart, Captain Vere executes Billy Budd.
  2. Billy Budd kills Claggart because Budd knows that Claggart is envious of him.
  3. Captain Vere relishes authority because it makes him powerful.
  4. Melville wrote Billy Budd to argue that the navy should not have the authority to impress sailors.
  5. Melville asks the reader to believe that because Billy Budd was hanged scientifically, he was hanged humanely.
  6. In Billy Budd, Melville explores the relationship between the laws of nature and the laws of man.

 

Alexander Pope:

 

  1. Like Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope has no faith in man.
  2. Alexander Pope uses the garden metaphor to demonstrate that the world is always an unwieldy place.
  3. Alexander Pope believes that man should be content with his position (within the determined order of the world).

 

Rousseau:

 

  1. Rousseau is the prototypical Enlightenment thinker because he accepts the power of reason.
  2. Rousseau believes that it is possible for someone to fully understand their emotions.
  3. When Rousseau writes, “I have lived,” he means that he has lived because he has successfully piloted a productive professional life; after all, he died a very wealthy man.
  4. Rousseau affirms in Confessions the importance of the sublime.
  5. The imagination is important, according to Rousseau, because the imagination allows men to live exuberant lives.
  6. Rousseau would rather remain a child than become a man.

 

Saramago:

 

  1. Saramago’s Blindness is a satire; like Swift, Saramago believes that the purpose of satire is the amendment of vices.
  2. Saramago, like Whiteman, is a prototypical Romanic writer.
  3. Saramago is an Enlightenment writer because he believes in the power of rational thought.

 

Jonathan Swift:

 

  1. A writer, like Jonathan Swift, uses satire because he believes society is irreconcilably lost, because he believes there is no hope.
  2. Jonathan Swift condemns all aspects of British life.
  3. Gulliver believes that reason is the only important attribute.
  4. Because Swift argues so vehemently for reason that means that he does not believe in God.
  5. Jonathan Swift does not believe that humans have free will; humans, like the Yahoos, are trapped in a fatalistic world.
  6. Jonathan Swift applauds the aristocracy for their ability to lead Great Britain out of a desolate situation.
  7. According to Gulliver’s Travels, reason always leads to avarice (greed).
  8. Jonathan Swift uses satire to amuse rather than to inform.

Whitman:

  1. Like Wordsworth, Whitman distrusts cities.
  1. Whitman is a maniacal egoist.
  2. Whitman believes that all men are equal.
  1. Whitman is a prototypical American.

 

Wordsworth:

 

  1. According to Wordsworth, nature affords us an opportunity to escape the horrific din of the city.
  2. For Wordsworth, nature is majestic—nature is sublime.
  3. Unlike Rousseau, Wordsworth would rather experience the world as a man than as a child.