ELIT 48A
Instructor Becky Roberts
Exam 2
Short Answer
Closed book. Short answer, 30 points
I will let you choose from 4-5 of the questions listed below, and ask you to
write on 3 of them. You should outline all of these questions to prepare for
the exam.
Give two detailed examples and explain in depth. Write about a page
each. You do not need to write an introduction for these responses—
just dive right in.
Revolutionary Period
1. What persuasive tactics does Paine use in The Crisis in order to convince
Americans not to give up the revolutionary cause?
2. How does Franklin’s autobiography reveal the ideals of the Enlightenment?
3. Explain how “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” shows us the direction of the
young nation in allegorical form.
Transcendentalists
4. Based on what we read in Emerson’s “Self Reliance,” why is it so important
that people follow their intuition?
5. The chapter we read from Thoreau’s Walden, “Where I Lived,” is his attempt
to put Emerson’s ideas into action. How successful was he in living
Emerson’s ideals?
Slavery and Women’s Rights
6. What psychologically enables Douglass to refuse to let any master beat him
after Covey the slave breaker?
7. Compare the ways Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs try to claim their right
to respectability as women.
8. How does Fern use sentimentality for political purposes in Ruth Hall?
Poe & The Gothic
9. How does “The Purloined Letter,” as one of the first detective stories, teach
us to read in new ways?
10. What features of the Gothic do we see in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask
of Amontillado?
ELIT 48A
Instructor Becky Roberts
Midterm Exam
Take-home essay, 100 points
Due 11/25 at the start of class. You lose a letter grade if it’s late, and I can’t accept it
after 12/2.
Requirements: 800-1000 words, Typed, double-spaced, 1” margins.
You must include examples (quotes and summaries of events) and include
parenthetical page citations for quotes. A works cited page is not necessary since
you will use just one source, our text. Do not quote for more than 20% of the essay;
your arguments and ideas should drive the paper instead of presenting a string of
quotes. Please do not go over the maximum word-count (or not by much).
Choose one topic:
1. Explain how Enlightenment ideas influenced two the writers of the
Revolutionary War period (Franklin, Paine, Jefferson, Irving).
2. Explain how Transcendentalism brought together scientific, romantic and
religious views of the world, giving examples from both Emerson and
Thoreau.
3. Compare the ways Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass negotiate the
expectations of their mostly white audience.
4. How do the victim and killer function as sides of the divided self in Poe’s
horror stories “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado?
5. For Poe’s narrators, seeing and being seen are perilous moments that can
threaten one’s very identity. Why is that? Compare this phenomenon in two
of the following texts: “The Purloined Letter,” “The Raven,” or “The Tell-Tale
Heart.”
6. What is the relationship between the Romantic sense of the sublime and the
Gothic attraction to death? Cite examples from The Scarlet Letter and “The
Tell-Tale Heart.”