English 10
YORKE
Test 2: Salinger and Literary Theory
Monday, December 17
Section I: Literary Theory: Short Answer (40 points)
This section will relate to the information we studied regarding literary theory. This section
is informational rather than analytical. This section will have twenty questions, answer all
twenty, two points each.
Section II: Nine Stories (60 points)
On the test there will be four quotations – you will have to answer three of them. Your
answers should discuss why the quotation is significant. This means, that you will have to
discuss what relevance this quotation holds to the context, title, entire work, themes, motifs,
theory, and characters. Each quotation is worth 20 points.
“A Perfect Day for Banana Fish”
“Well, they swim into a hole where there’s a lot of bananas. They’re very ordinary-looking
fish when they swim in. But, once they get in, they behave like pigs. Why, I’ve know some
banana fish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas. He edged
the float and its passenger a foot closer to the horizon. “Naturally, after that they’re so fat
they can’t get out of the hole again. Can’t fit through the door” (15-16).
“Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut”
But she stood for a long time in the doorway. Then, suddenly, she rushed, in the dark, over
to the night table, banging her knee against the foot of the bed, but too full of purpose to
feel pain. She picked up Romona’s glasses and, holding them in both hands, pressed them
against her cheek. Tears rolled down her face, wetting the lenses. “Poor Uncle Wiggily,”
she said over and over again. Finally, she put the glasses back on the night table, lenses
down (37).
“Just Before The War With The Eskimos”
In a few seconds, he was back, bringing the sandwich half.
“Eat this,” he said. “It’s good.”
“Really, I’m not at all--”
“Take it, for Chrissake, I didn’t poison it or anything.”
Ginnie accepted the sandwich half. “Well, thank you very much” she said.
“It’s chicken,” he said, standing over her, watching her. “bought it last night in a
goddam delicatessen.”
“It looks very good.”
“Well, eat it then.”
Ginnie took a bite.
“Good, huh?”
Ginnie swallowed with difficulty. “Very,” she said (49-50).
“The Laughing Man”
Properly infuriated, the Laughing Man pushed off his mask with his tounge and confronted
the Durfarges with his naked face by moonlight. Mlle. Durfarge responded by passing out
cold. Her father was luckier. By chance, he was having one of his coughing spells at the
moment and thereby missed the lethal unveiling. When his coughing spell was over and he
saw his daughter stretched out supine on the moonlit ground, Durfage put two and two
together. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he fired the full clip in his automatic toward the
sound of the Laughing Man’s heavy sibilant breathing (68).
“Down at the Dinghy”
They didn’t walk back to the house; they raced. Lionel won.
“For Esme with Love and Squalor”
“What did one wall say to the other wall?” he asked shrilly. “It’s a riddle!”
I rolled my eyes reflectively ceilingward and repeated the question aloud. Then I looked at
Charles with a stumped expression and said I gave up.
“Meet you at the corner!” came the punch line, at top volume (98-99).
“Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes”
“Listen, Arthur,” the gray-haired man interrupted, taking his hand away from his face, “I
have a helluva headache all of a sudden, I don’t know where Ig to the bloody thing from.
You mind if we cut this short? I’ll talk to you in the morning—all right?” He listened for
another moment, and then hung up.
Again the girl immediately spoke to him, but he didn’t answer her. He picked a
burning cigarette—the girl’s—out of the ashtray and started to bring it to his mouth, but it
slipped out of his fingers. The girl tried to help him retrieve it before anything was burned,
but he told her to just sit still, for Chrissake, and she pulled back her hand (129).
“Teddy”
“I mean, all she was doing was pouring God into God into God, if you know what I mean”
(189).