English 2204 / Summer 2008

Review for the Midterm Exam

To Study:

1.) Know these authors' names and a few "major" biographical and "writerly" facts about each one. Also, know the stories listed after each author.

• Kate Chopin -- "The Story of an Hour" / "The Storm"

• Anton Chekhov -- "The Lady with the Pet Dog" / "Misery"

• Raymond Carver -- "A Small Good Thing" / "Cathedral"

• Flannery O'Connor -- "Revelation" / "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"

• Edgar Allan Poe -- "The Tell-Tale Heart" / "The Fall of the House of Usher"

• Charlotte Perkins Gilman -- "The Yellow Wall-Paper"

2.) Review the "Elements of Fiction" handout (from the first day of class) and pages 849-862 in The Art of the Short Story. Know these things about each of the above stories:

• Plot -- esp. Freytag's Pyramid -- the five principal parts of the plot and what an "epiphany is

• Characters

• Characterization -- protagonist / antagonist -- round / flat -- dynamic / static

• Narrators / Points of View -- first / third -- omniscient / limited-omniscient / dramatic or objective (or "camera-eye")

• Setting -- time and place

• Symbols

• Motifs

• Theme -- NOT just a "topic" (key words) and NOT just a "conflict" ( ___ vs. ___ ) but also a STATEMENT of a major idea/moral/lesson/message in the story

3.) Know the "basics" about these critical theories and approaches to literature:

• Reader-response criticism

• Biographical criticism

• Formalist criticism

• Psychological criticism

• Gender (Feminist) criticism

4.) We read the following flash fictions -- but how should I test you on these?

• "Currents"

• "Crazy Glue"

• "The Doctor"

• "Accident"

• "Geometry"

• "House on Fire"

• "Voices in My Head"

• "Pledge Drive"

The Exam:

1.) Expect some "identification" kinds of questions. For example:

• Matching authors' names to major biographical facts and story titles
• Matching story titles to characters, settings, points of view, etc.
• Matching points of view to narrators or story titles
• Matching literary terms to definitions and/or examples
• Matching characters to quotations
• Etc.

2.) Expect some "short answer" questions. For example:

• What are the five major parts of the basic plot structure ... and use examples from one story to illustrate each part.
• How are the three third-person points of view different from each other?
• Is _____ a round or flat character, and why?
• Is _____ a static or dynamic character, and why?
• How does the setting of _____ affect the characters and/or the plot?
• Do you consider _____ to be a "reliable" first-person narrator, and why?
• Etc. -- other kinds of interpretative questions, rather than factual questions.

3.) Expect a few "short essay" (one full paragraph) questions. For example:

• I might give you one quotation from each story we read. I would then ask you to identify each quotation by author and title and then explain how each quotation relates to the main character and a major theme in each story.
• I might give you a quotation you haven't seen before -- perhaps a quotation by another writer or critic -- and ask you to respond to it using a story we've read.
• I might ask you to "evaluate" a story we've read.
• Etc.