Schaefer
Midterm Exam, Fall 2006
World Lit II
Part
I—Choose
one passage from each of the groups below and for each passage you choose
discuss in two paragraphs (or more if you wish) the various ways in which that
passage relates to the themes of the work as a whole.
(Fifteen points per passage, for a total of forty-five on this section)
The
Death of Ivan Ilyich
1.
As his wife grew more irritable and exacting and Ivan Ilyich transferred the
centre of gravity of his life more and more to his official work, so did he grow
to like his work better and become more ambitious than before.
Very
soon, within a year of his wedding, [he] had realized that marriage, though it
may add some comforts to life, is in fact a very intricate and difficult affair
towards which in order to perform one's duty, that is, to lead a decorous life
approved of by society, one must adopt a definite attitude just as towards one's
official duties.
2.
At that very moment Ivan Ilyich fell through and caught sight of the light, and
it was revealed to him that though his life had not been what it should have
been, this could still be rectified. He asked himself, "What is the right thing?" and
grew still, listening. Then he felt
that someone was kissing his hand. He
opened his eyes, looked at his son, and felt sorry for him. His wife came up to him and he glanced at her.
She was gazing at him open-mouthed, with undried tears on her nose and
cheek and a despairing look on her face. He
felt sorry for her too.
3.
“Three days of frightful suffering and then death!
Why, that might suddenly, at any time, happen to me,” he thought, and
for a moment felt terrified. But—he
did not himself know how—the customary reflection at once occurred to him that
this had happened to Ivan Ilyich and not to him, and that it should not and
could not happen to him, and that to think it could would be yielding to
depression which he ought not to do, as Schwartz’s expression plainly showed.
After which reflection Peter Ivanovich felt reassured, and began to ask
with interest about the details of Ivan Ilyich’s death, as though death was an
accident natural to Ivan Ilyich but certainly not to himself.
Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass
1.
I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his
birthday. They seldom come nearer
to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time.
A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me
even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages.
I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.
2.
“Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (meaning myself) how to
read, there would be no keeping him. It
would forever unfit him to be a slave. He
would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.
As to himself, it would do him no good, but a great deal of harm.
It would make him discontented and unhappy.”
3.
We were at it for nearly two hours. Covey at length let me go, puffing and blowing at a great
rate, saying that if I had not resisted, he would not have whipped me half so
much. The truth was, that he had
not whipped me at all. I considered
him as getting entirely the worst end of the bargain; for he had drawn no blood
from me, but I had from him. The
whole six months afterwards, that I spent with Mr. Covey, he never laid the
weight of his finger upon me in anger. He
would occasionally say, he didn't want to get hold of me again.
"No," thought I, "you need not; for you will come off
worse than you did before."
“Essay
on Man”
1.
When the proud steed shall know why Man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:
Then shall Man's pride and dullness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's use and end;
Why doing, suffering, checked, impelled; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.
2.
Why has not Man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics given,
T’inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o’er,
To smart and agonize at every pore?
Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
3.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same;
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Part
II—Answer
the following question in an essay of about five paragraphs.
(Thirty points)
Compare
the life Frederick Douglass depicts himself as having lived with the life of
Ivan Ilyich as Tolstoy describes it. In
your view, what are the factors that enable Douglass to resist the messages
about himself that his culture seeks to impress on him, and what are the factors
that cause Ivan simply to accept the dictates of his culture?
What major realizations about life does Douglass come to that cause him
to conclude that he lives meaningfully, and which of those does Ivan avoid
coming to until the last hours of his life?
Do you feel that at the end of the story Ivan’s life, like Douglass’,
does have a meaning?
Part
III—Answer
the following question in an essay of about five paragraphs.
(Twenty-five points)
We
noted in class that Pope, as a product of the Age of Reason, employs the
classical formula of rhetorical persuasion—that is, appeals based on logos,
pathos, and ethos—and uses various of the elements of poetry and
argument—form, style, tone, allusion, imagery, and analogy—to create those
appeals. Pick three specific
examples of Pope’s strategies—such as his use of one particular analogy or
set of analogies, one particular allusion or set of allusions, or his employment
of the heroic couplet—and discuss whether you find each one effective or
ineffective as a means of persuasion for his original audience, Christians on
the one hand and devotees of the scientific method on the other.