LOYOLA COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS), CHENNAI – 600 034
B.A. DEGREE EXAMINATION – ENGLISH LITERATURE
THIRD SEMESTER – April 2009
EL 3500 - AMERICAN LITERATURE
Date & Time: 05/05/2009 / 9:00 - 12:00 Dept. No.
NM 05
Max. : 100 Marks
PART – A
1.Answer the following questions in about 300 words each: (10 x 2 = 20)
1.Why does Wallace Stevens call poetry a destructive force?
2.What are the things that Whitman observes in his poem “I Sit and Look Out”?
3.What does Poe say about length in his “Philosophy of Composition”?
4.What is the significance of the Mayflower Compact?
5. What is the theme of Emerson’s “Brahma”?
6. What is the poet Robert Frost feeling sorry about in his poem “The Road not Taken”?
7. Why is “The Glass Menagerie” called a memory play?
8. What was the British trying to do according to Thomas Paine in “The American Crisis?”
9. Why does Montresor wish to take revenge on Fortunato in Poe’s story?
10. List the animals Levertov mentions in her poem “Come into Animal Presence”.
PART – B
11.Answer any FIVE of the following in about 150 words: (5 x 8 = 40)
11. Discuss Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story” as an Absurd play.
12. What is the central theme of Katherine Anne Porter’s “Flowering Judas”?
13. Critically analyse Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “Mississippi Mother”.
14. What are the salient features present in Thomas Jefferson’s “Declaration of Independence”?
15. Attempt a character sketch of Willy Loman, the main character of Arthur Miller’s “The Death
of a Salesman”.
16. Attempt a critical appreciation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil”.
17. How does Poe create atmosphere in his short story “The Cask of Amantillado”?
18. Comment on the aptness of the title of Henry James’s “The Real thing”.
PART – C
111.Answer the following questions in about 300 words each: (2 x 20 = 40)
19. Discuss the salient features of 20th Century poetry with special reference to the poets
prescribed for study.
OR
20.What aspects of the colonial period are found in the poems of Anne Bradstreet and Edward
Taylor?
21. Discuss the themes present in John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”.
OR
22.List the techniques used by Tennessee Williams in his play “The Glass Menagerie”.
**************