May 8, 2009
Xianfeng Mou
09 Spring ENGL 267 World Literature 1,700—present
Final Exam: Answer three (3) out of the ten (10) following questions.
Notes:
- Answer three of the following questions. Choose as many authors as possible. When two questions are about the same literary piece, you can choose when their emphases differ.
- Feel free to agree or disagree with their assumptions, obvious or implied. You can also modify the questions.
- Remember to give out your position first, then support your opinions with sufficient textual evidence (your primary source) and if you know, secondary sources such as criticisms or historical info when relevant to your point.
- Do not give plot summary. Write legibly and pace your progress.
- Write at least one page for each question.
These are the questions.
- Beckett, in his Endgame, says that life inherently has no meaning. It is individuals that determine and create meanings for their own lives.
- Desai, in her story “The Rooftop Dwellers,” affirms Moyna’s ability and courage to face the trials and tribulations of living in a strange big city to make an independent life for herself. Moyna’s possible decline of a promising young man’s proposal and the prospect of marrying him and living in the United States proves that she loves her independence and freedom.
- Diop in “The Bone,” severely criticizes the stinginess, greed, and the lack of hospitality between sworn brothers. The bone of contention between the host and the guest eventually centers on when one should observe the obligation of sharing and how much a guest can legitimately claim without abusing that principle of host hospitality.
- Hamm, in Beckett’s Endgame, is obsessed with sitting at the center of the room in his armchair. His obsession may reflect his obsession to exercise control over his environment.
- In the “Breast-giver,” the author finally suggests that the Indian woman Joshoda is forced to nurse over fifty children in her lifetime. Joshoda’s exploitation results from combined oppression due to gender, patriarchy, class, and priest privileges. The false significance the upper class family gives her as their professional wet-nurse was their way to exploit her body under a veneer of respect. Relate how you understand exploitation of the female body with Devi’s comment that “Joshoda’s death was also the death of God.”
- After Gregor changed his form, only Gregor’s sister Crete loves him and has cared for him, but she is also the first one to suggest the changed Gregor should die willingly to benefit the family.
- Since Things Fall Apart echoes the poem The Seconding Coming, Achebe may be predicting that eventually the force of Christianity and the power of Western culture may eventually prevail after catastrophic conflicts between western culture and non-western culture.
- The thing that hurt Gregor the most in The Metamorphosis was the apple that his father threw at him, which indicates that Gregor’s sensuality and ability to love has suffered severely under his domineering father and maybe his culture.
- The Zuni story “The Boy and the Deer,” as we are told, is a significant prototype theme with many variations. Allegorically, the relationship between the boy, his deer mother who took care of his every need, and his human mother (the priest’s daughter who dropped and abandoned him) can be interpreted as reflecting the relationships between the Zuni people and the natural world, and the relationships between the Zuni people and the American culture.
- To sum, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis illustrates the alienation and reification of modern society that changes humans into animals into objects till they reach death. It illustrates the tragedy of losing human consciousness, having one’s humanity stripped away, and the unavailability of compassion for the victim in the inhuman social environment.
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Created by Xianfeng Mou, spring 2009, All Rights Reserved.
