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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.