Midterm Study Guide LIT 2020 1 Identify movements along Freytag s Pyramid a How are we introduced to the characters setting situation etc First who are the characters Where are they b What rising conflicts and tensions present themselves c What is the climax of the story d How does the story unravel after the climax e How does the story resolve Or does it even resolve 2 Comment on the writer s style a How would you describe the level of diction b c Is the writing sharp and precise or overly excessive flowery didactic Linear non linear stream of conscious 3 Discuss the underlying themes of the story a What is the theme Is it overt Is there more than one b Does the mood of the story influence the theme How c What are some key images or details that have special significance Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe o Eerie dark and depressing beginning o Narrator Roderick Madeline o Roderick starts to go crazy steaming from the illness Narrator tries to help Roderick and try to calm him down They both thought Madeline dies so they bury her under the house so doctors cannot do experiments and tests on her body One night after Roderick has been hearing noises which he believes is Madeline trying to escape she stumbles out of the tomb comes into the room and kills Roderick The narrator runs out of the house which then comes crumbling down o Conflict Roderick is sick and the narrator is supposed to help o Climax when Madeline appears in the doorway o Resolution They both die and the house comes crumbling down o More antiquated style didactic o Linear o Theme fear fear is responsible for two deaths in this story Because Roderick fears death it brings about his death o Written in gothic tradition o Mood is dark influences theme God Sees the Truth But Waits by Leo Tolstoy o We are introduced to a merchant by the name of Aksionov On the day he was going to leave to go to a fair his wife begged him not to go because she had a bad dream about him While on the road he met up with a merchant and they shared a room Later the next day police start to question him find a bloody knife in his stuff and accuse him of murder He is shipped off to a prison in Siberia A prisoner named Semyonich comes from Vladmir where Aksionov is from and later confesses to killing the merchant and stuffing the knife into his things o Aksionov turns to God and faith when he realizes he is all alone o Linear short and to the point o Underlying theme morality faith patience o In the prison for 26 years o Rising conflicts when Aksionov gets framed for murder o Climax when Semyonich confesses to Aksionov that he was the one who committed the murder o The story ends with Semyonich finally coming forward even though Aksionov told him he didn t need too When they came to release Aksionov he was already dead Lady with the dog by Anton Chekhov o Dmitri Anna the lady with the dog o Dual setting Yalta and Moscow o Dmitri Gurov is 40 and married with kids He dislikes his wife and women in general He meets a lady with a dog who he later finds out to be Anna and she is also married The two quickly become lovers but the affair ends when she is summoned home by her husband While in Moscow Gurov cannot get Anna out of his head and travels to her house and comes up to her at an opera while her husband is outside She is horrified that he is there but she takes him away and tells him that he has to leave but she promises to visit him again in Moscow She follows up on that promise and begins to visit Moscow regularly and meeting Gurov in the hotel in which she is staying at They both realize they are in love with each other and the story ends with them crying and trying to find a way to be together o Climax when they both realize they are living double lives o Themes Love infidelity o Linear Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders o The story begins in medias res In the middle of things o Jeff Abnesti Heather Rachel Rogan Keith Verlaine o The spider head is where experiments are performed which causes the subjects to develop feelings for each other fall in love have sexual intercourse and then made to forget they had feelings for each other Jeff realizes Rogan and Keith also had sex with Heather and Rachel All of the subjects are asked which one of the partners they choose to put the Darkenfloxx drug into their Mobipaks which would ultimately kill the subject After accidentally killing Heather Jeff refused to acknowledge for Abnesti to put the same drug into Rachel s Not because he had feelings for her but because he didn t want to watch another person go through what Heather went through Abnesti and Verlaine try to get permission to put Docilryde a drug to make someone obey into Jeff s Mobipak While they are trying to get permission Jeff used the remote to put a drug into his Mobipak which kills himself o Moments where diction fluctuates between high and low o Very economical o Theme good vs evil antihuman testing sacrifice o Mostly linear o Mood Manipulative dark humor The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Wolf o Stream of conscious o Climax When the husband walks in o High level of diction o No real resolution o Underlying themes gender roles o Mood Wandering Uncertainty What is the mark on the wall o Water nature imagery The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World by Gabriel Garcia Marquez o All the villagers do not have names and the only one who they do not know is given a name Esteban o Once the women lift the cloth off Esteban s face the men finally see that he is Esteban o Instead of tying an anchor to him for him to drown in the ocean the villagers throw him off a cliff so he can come back whenever he pleases o Conflict why he is so big who he belongs to o Resolution through Esteban everyone becomes family mother father aunt uncle etc o Diction not low but not high o Linear o Themes People reject what they do not know learn to accept things once they become personalized with them o Human empathy o Mood fable mythical quality o Name has the most significance Good Country People by Flannery O Connor o Mrs Freeman Mrs Hopewell Joy Hulga Pointer o Somewhere in the south o Pointer comes to the door carrying Bibles in a valise o Uses his heart condition for sympathy is a manipulator but we don t realize that until the end o Hulga and Pointer arrange to have a picnic the next day o Hulga believes she is …