Ms. Sallee
American Perspectives
16 November 2009
Take-home test
Due start of class Monday, November 23rd
Total points: 60
Late tests lose 10 points
Directions: For each of the following questions, compose a multi-paragraph response that sets
out a mini-thesis on the question and incorporates analysis of judiciously chosen, well-integrated
quotations with parenthetical citations (author-page). Use the grading guidelines from the open
response questions and the multi-paragraph model open response as a guide for development and
support. Use the point value of the question as a guide to response length. You may not
consult each other or additional sources of any kind in completing this assignment except as
indicated in number 5.
1. (10 points) “There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she
would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence
with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellowcreature.” --From “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin.
This desire for independence goes against the traditional southern woman’s role in life,
and those with it were often cast out of their traditional southern society. From either “The Story
of an Hour” or “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” discuss both the desire for and the consequences of a
main character’s break from her role as a traditional southern woman. Make sure you have a
clear thesis, and that you support your thesis with specific examples from the work.
2. (10 points) A Georgetown professor, Beverly Lyon Clark,
(http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/oconnor.html)
explains Flannery O’Connor’s commentary, contained in Mystery and Manners as
follows:
She [O’Connor] states that the subject of her work is "the action of grace in territory held
largely by the devil" (Mystery and Manners 118). She tries to portray in each story "an
action that is totally unexpected, yet totally believable" (118), often an act of violence,
violence being "the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially" (113).
Through violence she wants to evoke Christian mystery, though she doesn't exclude other
approaches to her fiction: she states that she could not have written "A Good Man Is Hard
to Find" in any other way but "there are perhaps other ways than my own in which this
story could be read" (109).
Analyze the violence, either in “Good Country People” or “A Good Man is Hard to Find” with
O’Connor’s comments in mind. Consider any combination of the ideas set out above, in the
process setting out your own reading of the significance of the central violent action in one of the
two O’Connor stories we read.
3. (10 points) Analyze the significance of the title of one of the following stories,
making sure to ground your inferences in specific textual evidence—oftentimes
indirect: Idols or “That Evening Sun.” (It will probably be beneficial, regardless of
which story you choose, to refer to southern culture, preoccupations or themes, either
directly or implicitly.
4. (15 points) For one of the following stories, compose an essay in which you analyze
how setting and characterization affect theme: “Idols” or “That Evening Sun.” Be
sure to set out a clear thesis and support it with specific analysis of supporting
examples, including quotations
5. (15 points)From WEB DuBois The Souls of Black Folks, regarding his concept of the
double consciousness of black folks:
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s
self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks
on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro;
two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body,
whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
Compare and contrast the ways in which the narrator in “Battle Royal” and Dee Wangero
in “Everyday Use” struggle with—and perhaps try to resolve—this bind of doubleconsciousness. In what ways are their approaches similar? Different? Does one seem to
yield a richer, more fulfilling experience? Does one approach offer more integrity? For
additional background on this question, you may consult the Post Colonial Project on
TEWWG from our class. Two of the threads explain how the concept applies to
TEWWG.