English 204: British Literature II

Study Guide for Final Exam

Spring 2005

Dr. Tina L. Hanlon
Ferrum College

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General Guidelines

• Review all assigned readings, putting emphasis on being most familiar with works and concepts that received the most attention in class discussions.

• Be sure all your answers make reference to one or more specific works of literature.

• Write all answers in complete sentences and standard English. Test answers aren’t expected to be as polished stylistically or mechanically as out-of-class papers, but college-level writing skills must be used to make your answers clear to the reader who evaluates them.

• You should have a good understanding of how the works we have studied for this test represent the twentieth century in English literature. Also think about comparisons among different works by different authors.

• You are not responsible for most of the background material in the anthology's introduction sections, or the anthology web site or other materials that have been recommended for this course. But reading the introductions can help improve your grasp of the literature and modernism and major concepts we discussed. For some good points for review, see the Twentieth Century Summary at http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/20century/review/summary.htm and Making Connections at http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/20century/review/mconnections.htm.

Take-Home Section

This assignment is optional. If you complete it, it will count as 10% of your final grade in the course. It will be averaged into your grades for the tests and final exam (which were originally designated as 55% of the final course grade. This means that your earlier test grades will count less than indicated on the syllabus.)

Deadline: This part of the final exam is due no later than Monday, May 2, at noon. You can drop it off in Britt 201 or 205, or e-mail it to THanlon and CDoss@ferrum.edu with the name Hanlon as part of the subject line. If you e-mail it, check before Tuesday to make sure your attachment arrived.

Requirements: Write about six works of literature, by at least four different authors, in one or two essays. The essay(s) must focus on one of the topics listed below for review (two different topics if you choose to divide it into two essays). Where there is an "and" in the lists of review topics, you may choose just one of the themes or literary approaches listed there (e.g., influence of Romanticism or realism, not both in one essay). If you write two essays, they do not have to be equal in length or scope. Also use the following guidelines (the first two are mandatory).

• Include one or more examples from your project report and/or second paper topic (a novel or play) and/or reports by someone else in the class.
• Include one or more examples from the last four assignments of the semester (Ted Hughes, Salman Rushdie, Seamus Heaney, Nadine Gordimer)
• Optional: you may include one or two examples from the Norton anthology that are not in the assigned readings for this course.
• Optional: you may include no more than two works from before the twentieth century.

Example: I could write an essay about stream of consciousness in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," The Waste Land and "The Mark on the Wall" (two authors). I could then write a second essay on fragmentation in modern life in "The Odour of Chrysanthemums," Lord of the Flies (which I heard about in a student's report and, besides, I've read it before so I'm familiar with it), and "The Moment before the Gun Went Off." (This gives me a total of five authors, more than enough.) If I could combine these into one essay effectively, that would be fine. (Stream of consciousness often creates effects that reflect fragmentation in modern life so I might decide to combine these.)

Advice about scope and content: Write this assignment like the essay section on a test. You may take extra time to consult your books and notes and to edit and proofread after writing, but you should be able to do the writing in about an hour or so. Do not write a long paper or research paper. You are not encouraged to use any sources besides the texts you are discussing, but if you do run across an idea in your anthology or something you had recorded in your own notes from another source, and you need to paraphrase or quote that idea in your writing, you must indicate the source of that idea or quotation. If use an idea from another student's report, say so (names and topics are listed on the course schedule). If you include a direct quotation from a literary text in the Norton anthology, give the page number in parentheses.

Do not let the focus of your take-home writing overlap much with the essay you write on the in-class exam. (E.g., if you have finished your take-home writing before the final exam, do not pick a very similar focus for your essay on the exam.)

Examples of Topics to Review (This is not a complete list of every topic that may be included on the exam. Use your notes from class to review.) These are also topics to choose from for the take-home assignment.

• Continuing influence of Romanticism and nineteenth-century realism
• Different views on the roles of women presented in twentieth-century English literature
• Depiction of modern life as a waste land
• Influence of violence and political conflicts in world events
• Fragmentation and the absurd in modern life and in forms or styles of writing
• The epiphany at the end of modern short stories
• Stream of consciousness as a method for conveying the inner life of characters
• Images that represent dehumanization in modern life
• Emphasis on mundane or tedious routines in everyday life
• Influence of modern psychology (e.g., interest in the unconscious or the irrational)
• Loss of belief in spiritual traditions that provided stable views of the world
• Modernist concerns with time and/or memory
• Views of parent-child relations or relationships among different generations
• Views of problems caused by class differences or racism in society
• Interest in diverse cultures and postcolonial developments in the former British Empire
• Views of love relationships or marriage
• Use of historical or literary images/events/figures from the past
• Views on the individual's relationship to the community or homeland
• Use of humor in relation to any of the themes listed above

This sample comes from American literature but it contains good illustrations of strengths and weaknesses in answers for the short answer portion of the text.

Sample Short Answer Question: Discuss briefly the significance of the broken unicorn.

One-point answer (too brief; doesn’t discuss significance; not a complete sentence; author not identified):

a figurine that breaks in The Glass Menagerie

Two-point answer (brief identification but nothing on significance):

Williams, The Glass Menagerie. This is Laura's favorite figurine in her collection of glass animals.

Three-point answer (good on significance of item but nothing precise on how the item relates to main characters or plot or period/genre of literature. The key word "broken" has not been explained. Also there is awkward wording in this answer and the play is called a "story.")

The unicorn in Williams’ The Glass Menagerie symbolizes the unique virgin, fragile, and beautiful aspects of the young person in the story. It represents the unreal fantasy in real life circumstances.

Four-point answer (too much plot summary and not precise enough on thematic significance):

The glass unicorn was one of Laura's favorite figurines in her menagerie of glass animals. She lived with her mother and brother and she was afraid to go out into the world because she felt self-conscious about her physical handicap. Her collection at home was very important to her. Laura and Jim were dancing when they knocked it over and broke it. When that happened she said the unicorn would now be like the other animals. Since she had liked Jim since they were in high school together, and he was helping her feel more self-confident, she gave him the unicorn, but he told her he was engaged to another girl, so the play ends sadly.

Five-point answer (gets right to the point about the significance of the unicorn):

The unicorn is Laura's favorite glass piece in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. It represents her uniqueness and virginity. However, while she and Jim are dancing, the unicorn falls and loses its horn, making it just one of the other horses. This represents Laura's feeling that she is now like everyone else; she is dancing despite her handicap.

Note on short-answer questions: There are many ways of discussing briefly the significance of an important character, place, quotation, or object from a piece of literature. Give a short discussion of how the item identified relates to the development of the main character, contributes to the main plot, functions symbolically, reflects the main theme of the poem, or represents a specific technique or genre or trend in literature (e.g., explain how chrysanthemums represent stages of the wife's life, positive and negative aspects of her marriage, in "The Odour of Chrysanthemums" by D. H. Lawrence, and/or mention how Lawrence's frank, intense focus on the physical as inseparable from the psychological is typical of modernist literature). You don't need to cover every way it functions, or figure out exactly what the professor wants in that answer, and don’t spend too much time summarizing the work or developing long interpretations. Be sure you are not just paraphrasing the content of a quotation or restating the information or idea give in the question. As long as you give a precise, brief statement of the item's significance, without ignoring any key words in the question (especially if it is a quotation) or any obvious, overwhelmingly important point about its role in the work, you will receive full credit for your answer.

Not all questions will be phrased this way, but any short essay answer or essay should do a good job of stressing the literary significance of the work you are discussing. If the question asks for a comparison, make a brief point of comparison that focuses on a significant idea about the works of literature.

Essays Question on In-Class Exam: (one third of exam grade)

• There will be one essay question requiring you to write about at least three of the authors in the reading assignments from the twentieth century. For example, you might be asked to compare the use of images from nature in three works we have studied (one by each author).

• You will have a choice of essay questions. You choose which work(s) by each author you will discuss to answer the question you have chosen. Focus on works we discussed in class, but you may also mention other works by the same author that we did not focus on in class discussion, if they help prove your point. Be sure to use specific examples and details from the works to support the generalizations in your essay.

• If questions ask for comparison/contrast, be sure you have included specific, explicit points of comparison and/or contrast in your essay.

• See also Pointers for Taking Essay Tests. Many writing and literature textbooks (such as The Little, Brown Handbook) also give advice about responding to essay questions and examples of student essays.

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