ENG 340: Preparation for Final Examination [250 Points]
This semester, your final examination will consist of two take-home essays, one on Ruth
Ozeki’s My Year of Meats, and one on Arthur Miller’s Focus. Each essay will be titled,
typed and double-spaced using 1-inch margins on all four sides of the page, and 3-4
pages in length. Review the instructions for writing essays in our on-line Kindred and The
Namesake essay assignments for information on formatting your essays and presenting
and integrating quotations.
You will submit hard copy of your completed essays at our final examination meeting on
Tuesday, December 8 @ 1 pm in Root A-274. The topics for each essay follow. Please
note that I have modified the topics for the My Year of Meats essay, narrowing the focus a
bit for each topic. If you have already begun or completed the essay using two characters
for your focus, that is fine. However, I have tried to simplify the assignment by reducing
your focus to only one character for whichever topic you choose.
Essay 1: My Year of Meats [125 Points]
Choose one of the following topics for your essay on My Year of Meats:
 Questions 2, 6, and 9 of the Penguin Readers Guide all address portrayals of women in
the novel. Discuss how any woman character in the novel challenges and/or supports
gender stereotypes. What statement is Ozeki making about available roles for women
in our culture? About pressures experienced by women to balance job and family, or to
sacrifice one for the other? What roles do commerce and the media play in promoting
stereotypes about women or in perpetuating the status quo? Do not attempt to
answer each of these questions. Instead, use these questions to generate a single
focus for your essay.
 Questions 5, 7, & 9 ask us to consider the male characters and representations of
masculinity in the novel. Discuss how any male character in the novel challenges or
supports gender stereotypes of men? Does he cause you to question your
preconceptions regarding masculinity, or does he simply confirm your views? Is there
any variation among the male characters? That is, are any of these characters more
self-aware than others regarding their relationships (either personal or professional)
with women? Do the media in Ozeki’s novel perpetuate or dismantle male
stereotypes? Again, do not attempt to answer each of these questions. Instead, use
these questions to generate a single focus for your essay.
 Questions 5 and 8 both encourage us to consider how Ozeki addresses culture,
ethnicity, and cultural diversity. Implicitly, question 10 also evokes cultural diversity
in a changing world by commenting on the different meanings of “truth” and
“authenticity” held by different characters. What comment does Ozeki make about
globalization, commerce, the media, and cultural diversity? Ultimately, what values or
positions does she promote? How do these values or positions connect with issues that
we have raised throughout the course? Support your judgments with evidence from
the novel. Again, do not attempt to answer each of these questions. Instead, use
these questions to generate a single focus for your essay.
Essay 2: Focus [125 Points]
Choose one of the following topics for your Focus essay:
 Clearly, Arthur Miller’s novel depicts how prejudicial attitudes form and are
perpetuated. Discuss how one of the following characters functions to develop
Miller’s prejudice theme in the novel. It might be helpful to read and quote Miller’s
1985 introduction to the novel to help you to focus [no pun intended] your
approach to the prejudice theme.
Gertrude Hart
Mr. Finkelstein [He is never given a first name.]
Lawrence Newman
 As we mentioned in class, you are allowed for your final essay on Focus to discuss
your reaction to the novel. However, your response should move beyond a simple “I
liked” or “I didn’t like” Miller’s novel. Write a review of the novel in which you
discuss its weaknesses and strengths. The point of any review, of course, is to
evaluate the work in question and to suggest whether or not reading it is a
worthwhile or valuable experience. In other words, your conclusion should include
a final assessment of the novel.