English 214: FINAL EXAM: Part I

1) Write answers in a separate document other than this one.

2) Provide answers that are accurate, answers that indicate what you know.
3) Number your answer the same as the question. (Example: The answer to question #4 should be
numbered #4.
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SHORT (but ADEQUATE) ANSWER. EXPLAIN any eight of the following (1.5 pts each):
1. a grotesque
2. Aksinya's hottest thought
3. Anisim's second bone
4. Tar Baby
5. SYBIL, YOU WERE RAPED BY SANTA CLAUS. SURPRISE.
6. a villain nobody recognizes as a villain
7. a fatal hold on a noble ideal
8. Romanticism
9. Post-Modernism
Supply BRIEF BUT INFORMATIVE ANSWERS to any five of the following.
(2 pts each)
10. Why did serious writers move away from the Omniscient (Distant Third-Person) point of view after
the First World War?
11. Discuss the importance of Muteness to a Melodrama. Why is it impossible to have one without the
other?
12. When did genre fiction writing start and who were the earliest genre writers? What's the difference
between literary writing and genre writing?
13. Explain the post-modern approach to telling a story using the Karen Russell story ("St Lucy's Home
for Girls Raised by Wolves") as your example to support your assertion.
14. Discuss the differences between the Minimalist and Maximalist "contracts" between the writer and
the reader.
15. In what way is INVISIBLE MAN a Drama of Consciousness?

English 214: FINAL EXAM: Part II

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ESSAY ANSWER (in at least one complete paragraph, with a topic sentence and adequate
development). Select any four of the following. (4.5 pts each)
16. Pretend you're the hero of "How I Contemplated The World" by Joyce Carol Oates. Write
about a recent personal experience of yours by answering the five questions on the "Elements of
Situation/Plot" handout AS SHE WOULD ANSWER THEM. Pick an experience (one from the
story) that caused you, the hero, to feel an intense, powerful emotion (at least an "8" on a scale of
1-10) and then give the essential details of the situation (starting point, thoughts, emotions,
physical feelings and actions.)
17. In Ch. 50, Maria walks straight into a gang of boys who are breaking into her car, gets in
and drives away. Why does she do it and what does this action have to do with her plans to
regain custody of Kate?
18. How do you tell a true war story, according to Tim O'Brien's THE THINGS THEY
CARRIED?
19. What is the most post-modern thing about THE THINGS THEY CARRIED and how does it
change the book from being modernist to being post-modernist?
20. Compare the Oates and Russell post-modern stories, written 37 years apart, about two young
women who leave home, experience an ordeal, and then return, both saying, "I am home."
What's the greatest similarity between the stories? What's the biggest difference?