Romeo & Juliet: Vocabulary

abate * abhor *absolve * addle * adversity * agile * amble *  ambuscade *

amorous * anon *  antics *apothecary * asunder * atomies * augment *  

baleful *bandy * bauble * bawdy * bedeck * beguile * behoove * beshrew * 

bier * bode * braggart brawls * budge *  cankered* carrion * chaste * 

chide *churl * clout *  conduit  conjure * consort * contagion * cot-quean *

cull * dank * demesnes * descry * dexterity *direful * dirge * distill  * 

distraught * dissemble doff * doleful * dote * dowdy * dram *drivel * 

drowsy * ducats * effeminate * entreat * fain * felon * fester * fickle * fleck *

forfeit * forsworn gadding * garish * giddy * gory * gossamer *grubs * 

headstrong * haughty * heretic * idolatry * importune * impute * 

inauspicious * inexorable * jaunt * jocund * lineaments  * livery * loll * 

loathsome *mammet * mandrakes martial * matron * maw * meddle * 

minions * minstrels * mire * morsel * musty * nimble * nuptials *  obsequies* 

passado * paramour *penury * pernicious * peppered *  pestilence * portly *

poultice * presage * prate * presage *  privy * prolix * purge * quench * 

restorative * revels * rote * runagate sallow * saucy *scourge  * scurvy * 

sententious * sepulcher * slander * sojourn * solace * stint *stratagem * stealth *

sunder * supple * tarry * tedious  tithe * trencher * troth * trudge * unruly *

unseemly *  unwieldy * vestal * vial *  visage * waddle * wantons * wench *

whit * wretch * wreak * zounds * [162]


All Quiet on the Western Front – Review Guide

Academic English II – All Quiet on the Western Front – Final Review Guide

Character List

 Paul Baumer – the sensitive narrator of the novel who is deeply affected by the traumatic events of World War I; he dies in October of 1918, one month before the end of the war

 Albert Kropp – one of Paul’s closest friends, his interest in analyzing the war leads to many of the most critical insights about the absurdities of war

Hans Muller – hard-headed and practical, Muller is curious about everyone’s plans after the war; he dies after being shot point-blank in the stomach; Paul will get the boots he had worn that once belonged to Kemmerich

Tjaden – a wiry young soldier with a voracious appetite; he holds a grudge against Corporal Himmelstoss – calls him a “dirty hound” at one point and find himself charged with insubordination

 Haie Westhus – a gigantic, burly fellow, Westhus was a peat digger before the war; he plans to continue serving in the army after the war, because he thought peat-digging was so unpleasant; eventually dies of a fatal injury to his back

 Detering – a peasant farmer with a wife and kids at home; always dreaming about getting home to the harvest; eventually goes AWOL  in search of home after smelling some cherry blossoms

Leer – a lusty bearded member of the second company and the first to lose his virginity, Leer is somewhat of a minor character in the story; he bleeds to death near the end of the novel when his hip is shattered by a piece of scrap metal that initially strikes Bertink

Ginger – the red-haired cook; he tries to control the rations that the men receive, but the other soldiers have little respect for him and mock him.

Joseph Behm* – a classmate of Paul’s; one of the first of the second company to die.

Franz Kemmerich* – a fellow soldier and classmate of Paul’s who develops a gangrene infection in his foot (from a minor injury) and dies an agonizing death; Paul later lies to his mother about this.

Stanilaus Katczinsky – at 40 years of age, the oldest member of the second company; a very resourceful soldier with an uncanny knack for finding food and predicting attacks; bleeds to death near the end of the novel from wounds to his leg and head.

Kantorek – Paul’s high school instructor who encourages his student to enlist in the military; is later conscripted and is tormented/taunted by his former student, Mittelstaedt.

Corporal Himmelstoss – a former postal worker and Paul’s drill instructor during basic training; he is later called up to the front; Tjaden dislikes him intensely at first but gradually learns to tolerate him

Gerard Duval – French soldier that Paul injures during hand-to-hand combat; he later dies from stab wounds despite Paul’s attempts to revive him

 Mrs. Baumer (Paul’s Mother) – a kind, demure woman who has been in poor health for many years; although not demonstrative with her affections, she loves her son deeply and tries to hide the fact that she has cancer.

Mr. Baumer (Paul’s Father) – initially somewhat of a non-sympathetic character in the story; he annoys Paul with requests for amusing or grisly “war stories” about life at the front; later we learn that his wife’s illnesses have cuased him financial stress for several years; he is poor, but works hard to make ends meet.

Mittelstaedt – a training officer that Paul meets up with when he returns home the first time; Mittelstaedt delights in tormenting and taunting his new recruit, Kantorek, who has been conscripted into the army

Josef – the man with the shooting licence in the hospital; he appears somewhat eccentric, but knows a lot about hospital life because he has been there so long.

Curly-haired Peter & Franz Wachter – two patients in the hospital ward who are sent to the “Death Room”; only Peter returns to tell of it.

 Lewandowski- a older soldier from Poland who is reunited with his wife and child while in the hospital; the other soldiers facilitate a “re-kindling of affection” between him and his spouse

 Bertink – Second Company’s Company Commander, Bertink is a brave and loyal soldier who dies from wounds to the chest and face after popping out of a bunker near the end of the novel

Plot Details Summary – with emphasis on changes to Paul Baumer’s Psyche 

Early death of the reluctant young recruit, Joseph Behm (chapter 1 – page 11)

Kemmerich’s death from gangrene infection (chapters 1-2 – pages 14-18, 27-33)

Memories of basic training under Corporal Himmelstoss – rebelling against authrority – the latrine bucket incident – (chapter 2 – pages 23-27; chapter 3, pages 42-43, 45-46)

Memories of ambushing Himmelstoss – Kropp, Tjaden and Paul give him a sound thrashing (chapter 3 -pages 47-50)

Bombardment in the Cemetery – dead corpses, coffins, and dirt piling on top of him (chapter 4, pages 66-71)

Paul and Kat encounter the young recruit with the shattered hip – writhing in pain – and taken away on a stretcher before he can be put “out of his misery.” (chapter 4 – pages 71-73)

Important Conversation: Muller’s curiosity about everyone’s future plans after the war (chapter 5 – page 76-80)

Tjaden denounces Himmelstoss – defiance of authority – everyone equal at the front (chapter 5, pages 81-83)

Paul, Kropp and Muller remember all theuseless knowledge” they learned from Kantorek back in high school (chapter 5, pages 84-87)

Paul’s meditation on the role of Chance in human affairs – remembers the two dugouts that were hit by shells seemingly at random – he could have been killed in both locations, but he got lucky (chapter 6 – page 101)

Paul and Kat have to beat a shell-shocked new recruit into submission before he tries to “escape” into No Man’s Land (chapter 6 – pages 109-111)

Paul watches as the French troops get gunned down one by one  (chapter 6 – pages 112-113)

Paul and the  other soldiers are forced to listen to an anonymous soldier’s death cries for three days although they’re unable to locate him (chapter 6 –pages 124-125)

Paul gets mad at Himmelstoss pretending to be woundedHaie Westhus receives a fatal injury to his back (chapter 7 – pages 131-132, 134)

Paul forgives Himmelstoss for previous offenses – learns to accept him as a fellow soldier (chapter 7, pages 137)

The Girl in the Theater Poster – Pauls Romantic Fantasies – (chapter 7, pages 141)

Paul’s Sexual Awakening/Brief Encounter with a young French woman (chapter 7 – pages 144-153)

Paul’s Return Home (chapter 7 – pages 154-157)

Finds his mother sick in bed – later learns of her cancer (ch 7, pages 157-162)

Forgets to salute the Major (ch 7, pages 162-163)

Problems re-connecting with his father and telling him what the front is really like (ch 7, page 165)

Alienation from his home – feeling restless in his “old room” – his inability to go back to his previous carefree life (ch 7, pages 170-173)

Observing former classmate Mittelstaedt bossing around former teacher, Kantorek as punishment for goading Joseph Behm into combat (ch 7, pages 173-179)

Encounter with Russian Prisoners of War (POWs) –  sympathetic observations of the Russians and their comradeship – Paul notices how they are admirable and sociable– not savages (chapter 8, pages 189-194)

Meeting the Kaiser + Subsequent Conversation about leaders of nations and how wars get started(chapter 9, pages 202-207)

Blood and Gore on the Battlefield – Paul see mangled bodies and body parts in the trees

(chapter 9, pages 207-209)

Hand-to-Hand Combat – Paul impulsively stabs a French Soldier (Gerard Duval) and then tries to resuscitate him without success (chapter 9, pages 216-225)

Westhus dies from his severe back injury (chapter 10 – page 231)

After selecting a dug-out to use as a make-shift shelter, Paul and Kat go out foraging for food. They have a feast of suckling pigs and potato-cakes (chapter 10 – pages 232-238)

Paul and Kropp both are wounded in the leg after being asked to evacuate a village. (chapter 10 – pages 240-241)

Kropp resolves to kill himself if the doctors should happen to amputate his leg. Paul, meanwhile, struggles during surgery as the surgeon removes bits of scrap-metal from his leg. (242-247)

Paul is taken to a Catholic hospital run by nuns. The soldiers become cranky when the nuns offer their “morning prayers.” (250-252)

Curly-haired Peter and Franz Wachter get sent to the Death Room – Only Peter returns (chapter 10 – pages 254-257, 261-262)

Kropp has leg amputated – languishes in hospital – loses his will to live – later gets sent to an institute for fitting artificial limbs (chapter 10 – page 260, 268)

Lewandowski from Poland reunites with his wife and baby – the soldiers “stand guard” at the hospital (watching out for the nuns) as husband and wife get “reacquainted”  (chapter 10 – pages 264-268)

Paul gets sent home one more time before being sent up again to the front (chapter 10– pages 268-269)

Detering goes AWOL – longing from the cherry blossoms of home (chapter 11 – page 275-277)

Muller dies – shot point blank in the stomach – Paul acquires Muller’s boots that once had belonged to Kemmerich  – Tjaden (still alive) will get them next. (chapter 11 – page 279)

Bertink pops out of a bunker and gets shot in the chest – soon after he receives a shell fragment smashes away his chin (chapter 11 – page 284)

Leer bleeds to death after his hip is torn open by the same shell fragment that kills Bertink (chapter 11 –page 284)

Katzcinsky gets wounded in the leg (and head) and bleeds out – dies (chapter 11– page 287-288, 290-291)

It is autumn, 1918. Paul is given 14 days rest after suffering from a “mild” mustard gas attack. He knows that the war will be ending soon (“the armistice is coming”), but his emotions are spent (chapter 12, pages 293-294)

Paul dies in October of 1918 – one month before the war’s end (chapter 12/Epilogue – page 296)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glossary of Poetic Devices/Terms

 

  Allegory –A symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning. Allegory often takes the form of a story in which the characters represent moral qualities. The most famous example in English is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, in which the name of the central character, Pilgrim, epitomizes the book’s allegorical nature. Kay Boyle’s story “Astronomer’s Wife” and Christina Rossetti’s poem “Up-Hill” both contain allegorical elements.

Alliteration –The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words. Example: “Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.” Hopkins, “In the Valley of the Elwy.”

Allusion – A reference to some prior work of literature or a well-known person, event or place – often from history, mythology, literature, folk-lore or pop-culture.

Anachronism – An event or a detail that is chornologically out of its proper time in history. 

Anapest – Two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one, as in com-pre-HEND or in-ter-VENE. An anapestic meter rises to the accented beat as in Byron’s lines from “The Destruction of Sennacherib”: “And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, / When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.”

Antagonist – A character or force against which another character struggles. Creon is Antigone’s antagonist in Sophocles’ play Antigone; Teiresias is the antagonist of Oedipus in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King.

Assonance –The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose, as in “I rose and told him of my woe.” Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” contains assonantal “I’s” in the following lines: “How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, / Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself.”

Aubade – A love lyric in which the speaker complains about the arrival of the dawn, when he must part from his lover. John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” exemplifies this poetic genre.

Ballad –narrative poem written in four-line stanzas, characterized by swift action and narrated in a direct style. The Anonymous medieval ballad, “Barbara Allan,” exemplifies the genre.

Blank verse- A line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare’s sonnets, Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, and Robert Frost’s meditative poems such as “Birches” include many lines of blank verse. Here are the opening blank verse lines of “Birches”: When I see birches bend to left and right / Across the lines of straighter darker trees, / I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

Caesura –A strong pause within a line of verse. The following stanza from Hardy’s “The Man He Killed” contains caesuras in the middle two lines:

He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps,
Off-hand-like–just as I–
Was out of work-had sold his traps–
No other reason why.

Character –An imaginary person that inhabits a literary work. Literary characters may be major or minor, static (unchanging) or dynamic (capable of change). In Shakespeare’s Othello, Desdemona is a major character, but one who is static, like the minor character Bianca. Othello is a major character who is dynamic, exhibiting an ability to change.

Characterization –The means by which writers present and reveal character. Although techniques of characterization are complex, writers typically reveal characters through their speech, dress, manner, and actions. Readers come to understand the character Miss Emily in Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily” through what she says, how she lives, and what she does.

Climax –The turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. The climax represents the point of greatest tension in the work. The climax of John Updike’s “A&P,” for example, occurs when Sammy quits his job as a cashier.

Closed form –A type of form or structure in poetry characterized by regularity and consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, and metrical pattern. Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” provides one of many examples. A single stanza illustrates some of the features of closed form:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Complication –An intensification of the conflict in a story or play. Complication builds up, accumulates, and develops the primary or central conflict in a literary work. Frank O’Connor’s story “Guests of the Nation” provides a striking example, as does Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal.”

Conflict –A struggle between opposing forces in a story or play, usually resolved by the end of the work. The conflict may occur within a character as well as between characters. Lady Gregory’s one-act play The Rising of the Moon exemplifies both types of conflict as the Policeman wrestles with his conscience in an inner conflict and confronts an antagonist in the person of the ballad singer.

Connotation –The associations called up by a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning. Poets, especially, tend to use words rich in connotation. Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” includes intensely connotative language, as in these lines: “Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright / Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Convention
A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable, or the use of a particular rhyme scheme in a villanelle. Literary conventions are defining features of particular literary genres, such as novel, short story, ballad, sonnet, and play.

Couplet
A pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem. Shakespeare’s sonnets end in rhymed couplets, as in “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”

Dactyl
A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones, as in FLUT-ter-ing or BLUE-ber-ry. The following playful lines illustrate double dactyls, two dactyls per line:

Higgledy, piggledy,
Emily Dickinson
Gibbering, jabbering.

Denotation
The dictionary meaning of a word. Writers typically play off a word’s denotative meaning against its connotations, or suggested and implied associational implications. In the following lines from Peter Meinke’s “Advice to My Son” the references to flowers and fruit, bread and wine denote specific things, but also suggest something beyond the literal, dictionary meanings of the words:

To be specific, between the peony and rose
Plant squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes;
Beauty is nectar and nectar, in a desert, saves–

and always serve bread with your wine.
But, son,
always serve wine.

Denouement
The resolution of the plot of a literary work. The denouement of Hamlet takes place after the catastrophe, with the stage littered with corpses. During the denouement Fortinbras makes an entrance and a speech, and Horatio speaks his sweet lines in praise of Hamlet.

Dialogue
The conversation of characters in a literary work. In fiction, dialogue is typically enclosed within quotation marks. In plays, characters’ speech is preceded by their names.

Diction
The selection of words in a literary work. A work’s diction forms one of its centrally important literary elements, as writers use words to convey action, reveal character, imply attitudes, identify themes, and suggest values. We can speak of the diction particular to a character, as in Iago’s and Desdemona’s very different ways of speaking inOthello. We can also refer to a poet’s diction as represented over the body of his or her work, as in Donne’s or Hughes’s diction.

Elegy
lyric poem that laments the dead. Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” is elegiac in tone. A more explicitly identified elegy is W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of William Butler Yeats” and his “Funeral Blues.”

Elision
The omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry. Alexander uses elision in “Sound and Sense”: “Flies o’er th’ unbending corn….”

Enjambment
A run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next. An enjambed line differs from an end-stopped line in which the grammatical and logical sense is completed within the line. In the opening lines of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” for example, the first line is end-stopped and the second enjambed:

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now….

Epic
A long narrative poem that records the adventures of a hero. Epics typically chronicle the origins of a civilization and embody its central values. Examples from western literature include Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, and Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Epigram
A brief witty poem, often satirical. Alexander Pope’s “Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog” exemplifies the genre:

I am his Highness’ dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Exposition
The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, for instance, begins with a conversation between the two central characters, a dialogue that fills the audience in on events that occurred before the action of the play begins, but which are important in the development of its plot.

Falling action
In the plot of a story or play, the action following the climax of the work that moves it towards its denouement or resolution. The falling action of Othello begins after Othello realizes that Iago is responsible for plotting against him by spurring him on to murder his wife, Desdemona.

Falling meter
Poetic meters such as trochaic and dactylic that move or fall from a stressed to an unstressed syllable. The nonsense line, “Higgledy, piggledy,” is dactylic, with the accent on the first syllable and the two syllables following falling off from that accent in each word. Trochaic meter is represented by this line: “Hip-hop, be-bop, treetop–freedom.”

Fiction
An imagined story, whether in prose, poetry, or drama. Ibsen’s Nora is fictional, a “make-believe” character in a play, as are Hamlet and Othello. Characters like Robert Browning’s Duke and Duchess from his poem “My Last Duchess” are fictional as well, though they may be based on actual historical individuals. And, of course, characters in stories and novels are fictional, though they, too, may be based, in some way, on real people. The important thing to remember is that writers embellish and embroider and alter actual life when they use real life as the basis for their work. They fictionalize facts, and deviate from real-life situations as they “make things up.”

Figurative language
A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words. Examples include hyperbole or exaggeration, litotes or understatement, simile and metaphor, which employ comparison, and synecdoche and metonymy, in which a part of a thing stands for the whole.

Flashback
An interruption of a work’s chronology to describe or present an incident that occurred prior to the main time frame of a work’s action. Writers use flashbacks to complicate the sense of chronology in the plot of their works and to convey the richness of the experience of human time. Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily” includes flashbacks.

Foil
A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story. Laertes, in Hamlet, is a foil for the main character; in Othello, Emilia and Bianca are foils for Desdemona.

Foot
metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables. For example, an iamb or iambic foot is represented by ˘, that is, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. Frost’s line “Whose woods these are I think I know” contains four iambs, and is thus an iambic foot.

Foreshadowing
Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House includes foreshadowing as does Synge’s Riders to the Sea. So, too, do Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” and Chopin’s “Story of an Hour.”

Free verse
Poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme. The verse is “free” in not being bound by earlier poetic conventions requiring poems to adhere to an explicit and identifiable meter and rhyme scheme in a form such as the sonnet or ballad. Modern and contemporary poets of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries often employ free verse. Williams’s “This Is Just to Say” is one of many examples.

Hyperbole
A figure of speech involving exaggeration. John Donne uses hyperbole in his poem: “Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star.”

Iamb
An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, as in to-DAY. See Foot.

Image
A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea. Imagery refers to the pattern of related details in a work. In some works one image predominates either by recurring throughout the work or by appearing at a critical point in the plot. Often writers use multiple images throughout a work to suggest states of feeling and to convey implications of thought and action. Some modern poets, such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, write poems that lack discursive explanation entirely and include only images. Among the most famous examples is Pound’s poem “In a Station of the Metro”:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Imagery
The pattern of related comparative aspects of language, particularly of images, in a literary work. Imagery of light and darkness pervade James Joyce’s stories “Araby,” “The Boarding House,” and “The Dead.” So, too, does religious imagery.

Irony
A contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature. In verbal irony, characters say the opposite of what they mean. In irony of circumstance or situation, the opposite of what is expected occurs. In dramatic irony, a character speaks in ignorance of a situation or event known to the audience or to the other characters. Flannery O’Connor’s short stories employ all these forms of irony, as does Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado.”

Literal language
A form of language in which writers and speakers mean exactly what their words denote. See Figurative languageDenotation, and Connotation.

Lyric poem
A type of poem characterized by brevity, compression, and the expression of feeling. Most of the poems in this book are lyrics. The anonymous “Western Wind” epitomizes the genre:

Western wind, when will thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!

Metaphor
A comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or as. An example is “My love is a red, red rose,”

From Burns’s “A Red, Red Rose.” Langston Hughes’s “Dream Deferred” is built entirely of metaphors. Metaphor is one of the most important of literary uses of language. Shakespeare employs a wide range of metaphor in his sonnets and his plays, often in such density and profusion that readers are kept busy analyzing and interpreting and unraveling them. Compare Simile.

Meter
The measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems. See Foot and Iamb.

Metonymy
A figure of speech in which a closely related term is substituted for an object or idea. An example: “We have always remained loyal to the crown.” See Synecdoche.

Narrative poem
A poem that tells a story. See Ballad.

Narrator
The voice and implied speaker of a fictional work, to be distinguished from the actual living author. For example, the narrator of Joyce’s “Araby” is not James Joyce himself, but a literary fictional character created expressly to tell the story. Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” contains a communal narrator, identified only as “we.” See Point of view.

Octave
An eight-line unit, which may constitute a stanza; or a section of a poem, as in the octave of a sonnet.

Ode 
A long, stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form. Usually a serious poem on an exalted subject, such as Horace’s “Eheu fugaces,” but sometimes a more lighthearted work, such as Neruda’s “Ode to My Socks.”

Onomatopoeia
The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as buzz and crack are onomatopoetic. The following line from Pope’s “Sound and Sense” onomatopoetically imitates in sound what it describes:

When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow.

Most often, however, onomatopoeia refers to words and groups of words, such as Tennyson’s description of the “murmur of innumerable bees,” which attempts to capture the sound of a swarm of bees buzzing.

Open form
A type of structure or form in poetry characterized by freedom from regularity and consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, metrical pattern, and overall poetic structure. E.E. Cummings’s “[Buffalo Bill’s]” is one example. See also Free verse.

Parody
A humorous, mocking imitation of a literary work, sometimes sarcastic, but often playful and even respectful in its playful imitation. Examples include Bob McKenty’s parody of Frost’s “Dust of Snow” and Kenneth Koch’s parody of Williams’s “This is Just to Say.”

Personification
The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities. An example: “The yellow leaves flaunted their color gaily in the breeze.” Wordsworth’s “I wandered lonely as a cloud” includes personification.

Plot
The unified structure of incidents in a literary work. See ConflictClimaxDenouement, andFlashback.

Point of view
The angle of vision from which a story is narrated. See Narrator. A work’s point of view can be: first person, in which the narrator is a character or an observer, respectively; objective, in which the narrator knows or appears to know no more than the reader; omniscient, in which the narrator knows everything about the characters; and limited omniscient, which allows the narrator to know some things about the characters but not everything.

Protagonist
The main character of a literary work–Hamlet and Othello in the plays named after them, Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Paul in Lawrence’s “Rocking-Horse Winner.”

Pyrrhic
A metrical foot with two unstressed syllables (“of the”).

Quatrain
A four-line stanza in a poem, the first four lines and the second four lines in a Petrachan sonnet. A Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a couplet.

Recognition
The point at which a character understands his or her situation as it really is. Sophocles’ Oedipus comes to this point near the end of Oedipus the King; Othello comes to a similar understanding of his situation in Act V of Othello.

Resolution
The sorting out or unraveling of a plot at the end of a play, novel, or story. See Plot.

Reversal
The point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist. Oedipus’s and Othello’s recognitions are also reversals. They learn what they did not expect to learn. See Recognition and also Irony.

Rhyme
The matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words. The following stanza of “Richard Cory” employs alternate rhyme, with the third line rhyming with the first and the fourth with the second:

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him;
He was a gentleman from sole to crown
Clean favored and imperially slim.

Rhythm
The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse. In the following lines from “Same in Blues” by Langston Hughes, the accented words and syllables are underlined:

said to my baby,
Baby take it slow….
Lulu said to Leonard
want a diamond ring

Rising action
A set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play’s or story’s plot leading up to the climax. See ClimaxDenouement, and Plot.

Rising meter
Poetic meters such as iambic and anapestic that move or ascend from an unstressed to a stressed syllable. See AnapestIamb, and Falling meter.

Satire
A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is a famous example. Chekhov’s Marriage Proposal and O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” have strong satirical elements.

Sestet
A six-line unit of verse constituting a stanza or section of a poem; the last six lines of an Italian sonnet. Examples: Petrarch’s “If it is not love, then what is it that I feel,” and Frost’s “Design.”

Sestina
A poem of thirty-nine lines and written in iambic pentameter. Its six-line stanza repeat in an intricate and prescribed order the final word in each of the first six lines. After the sixth stanza, there is a three-line envoi, which uses the six repeating words, two per line.

Setting
The time and place of a literary work that establish its context. The stories of Sandra Cisneros are set in the American southwest in the mid to late 20th century, those of James Joyce in Dublin, Ireland in the early 20th century.

Simile
A figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using likeas, or as though. An example: “My love is like a red, red rose.”

Sonnet
A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter. The Shakespearean or English sonnet is arranged as three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet divides into two parts: an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet, rhyming abba abba cde cde or abba abba cd cd cd.

Spondee
metricalfoot represented by two stressed syllables, such as KNICK-KNACK.

Stanza
A division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form–either with similar or identical patterns or rhyme and meter, or with variations from one stanza to another. The stanzas of Gertrude Schnackenberg’s “Signs” are regular; those of Rita Dove’s “Canary” are irregular.

Style
The way an author chooses words, arranges them in sentences or in lines of dialogue or verse, and develops ideas and actions with description, imagery, and other literary techniques. See ConnotationDenotationDictionFigurative languageImageImageryIronyMetaphorNarratorPoint of viewSyntax, and Tone.

Subject
What a story or play is about; to be distinguished from plot and theme. Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is about the decline of a particular way of life endemic to the American south before the civil war. Its plot concerns how Faulkner describes and organizes the actions of the story’s characters. Its theme is the overall meaning Faulkner conveys.

Subplot
A subsidiary or subordinate or parallel plot in a play or story that coexists with the main plot. The story of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern forms a subplot with the overall plot of Hamlet.

Symbol
An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself. The glass unicorn in The Glass Menagerie, the rocking horse in “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” the road in Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”–all are symbols in this sense.

Synecdoche
A figure of speech in which a part is substituted for the whole. An example: “Lend me a hand.” See Metonymy.

Syntax
The grammatical order of words in a sentence or line of verse or dialogue. The organization of words and phrases and clauses in sentences of prose, verse, and dialogue. In the following example, normal syntax (subject, verb, object order) is inverted:

“Whose woods these are I think I know.”

Tercet
A three-line stanza, as the stanzas in Frost’s “Acquainted With the Night” and Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind.” The three-line stanzas or sections that together constitute the sestet of a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet.

Theme
The idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalization. See discussion of Dickinson’s “Crumbling is not an instant’s Act.”

Tone
The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work, as, for example, Flannery O’Connor’s ironic tone in her “Good Country People.” See Irony.

Trochee
An accented syllable followed by an unaccented one, as in FOOT-ball.

Understatement
A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker says less than what he or she means; the opposite of exaggeration. The last line of Frost’s “Birches” illustrates this literary device: “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”

Villanelle
A nineteen-line lyric poem that relies heavily on repetition. The first and third lines alternate throughout the poem, which is structured in six stanzas –five tercets and a concluding quatrain. Examples include Bishop’s “One Art,” Roethke’s “The Waking,” and Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

 

Writing Tips

10 Helpful Tips for Instantly Improving Your Writing

 1. Sentence Length – Write longer sentences. Try to average at least 15+ words per sentence for the sake of making your  “thought-process-on-paper” more complex, expansive and elaborate. When you’re feeling even more confident, go for 20 + words per sentence.

2. Action Verbs + Active Voice – Whenever possible, use active verbs (i.e. action words: like run, jump, scream, kick, flail, juxtapose, digest, extol, fructify, recapitulate) in the active voice without relying on a series of monotonous  “is this” /“is that” type descriptions. This means that for the most part the subjects of your sentences will be performing the action. Avoid passive voice constructions except when describing scenes of intense pathos or undeserved suffering.

[See below.  Note: These are intended as satirical examples.]

Active Voice: Marsha chased, heckled, clawed, teased, tackled and harassed poor Herbie.  Rocko  mercilessly crushed and dismembered the helpless butterfly. The storm squashed and enveloped the unsuspecting tourists.

Passive Voice: Poor Herbie  was chased, heckled, clawed, teased, tackled and harassed by Marsha. The helpless butterfly was crushed and dismembered mercilessly by Rocko. The unsuspecting tourists were squashed and enveloped by the storm.

3. Clarity & Content  – Always be as specific as you can be. Whenever possible, provide relevant details, examples, illustrations, quotations, citations. This will add to the CONTENT and SUBSTANCE of your writing. Don’t leave your readers thinking: “there’s no there there.” Avoidgeneric sounding” words. Why say “animal” when you really want to say: “elephant?”   Why say vegetable when you really mean “carrot” or “rutabaga?” Why say “businessman” when you really mean “shoe salesman?” Why say “thing” when you really mean “pencil sharpener” or “tyrannosaurus?”

4.  Grounded Generalizations – Please don’t leave any “bold generalities” hanging in the wind. Always back up  “general observations” with specific evidence or examples. If you go out on a limb to make an assertion, be sure to back it up with description, explanation or analysis.

5.  Interesting Vocabulary – Sprinkle unique and precise vocabulary into your prose. This will make your writing sound more erudite, urbane, sagacious, inimitable, polished, suave and omniscient.

6.  Original PhrasingAvoid clichés and hackneyed speech – i.e. catch phrases that you’ve heard a million times. Try to coin your own unique and memorable descriptions.

Clichés / Examples: “all washed up,” “apple of my eye,” “axes to grind,” “barking up the wrong tree,”  “busy as a bee,” “can’t see the forest from the trees,” “cold feet,” “common ground,” “dirt poor,” “every cloud has a silver lining,” “feet of clay,” “flat as a pancake,” “for the birds,” “give and take,” “get your feet wet,” “go out on a limb,” “gravy train,” “hard as a rock,” “heaven on earth,” “heard it through the grapevine,” “hit pay dirt,” “hung him out to dry,” “just fell off the turnip truck,” “knock on wood,” “land that time forgot,” light as a feather,” “like looking for a needle in a haystack,” “making ends meet,”  “naked as a jay bird,” “not my cup of tea,” “no use flogging a dead horse,” “no  `there’ there,”  “nutty as a fruitcake,” “once in a blue moon,” “one bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole bunch,” “place in the sun,” “raking in the dough,” “rise and shin,”  “rolling stone gathers no moss,” “salt of the earth, “shaking like a leaf,” “sitting on the fence,” “snail’s pace,” “thick as a brick,”  “think outside the box,” “thorn in my side,” “throw pearls before swine,” “’til the cows come home,” “too little too late,” “turn over a new leaf,” “ugly as a mud fence,” “under the weather,” “walking on thin ice,” “walking on water,” “water under the bridge,” “what’s done is done,” “wait and see,” “wet behind the ears,” “you reap what you sew.”

7.  Sentence Variety – Don’t just write in choppy, monotonous-sounding simple sentences all the time. Cultivate sentence variety by using more complex and complex-compound sentences. Change the sentence patterns here and there to create rhythm, pulse and “flow.” This will make your thoughts sound more sophisticated and expansive.

8. Narrative Voice – Develop a narrative voice that sounds credible and authoritative. Write like an expert on the subject you’re writing about; and please, speak to your reader as someone who KNOWS what he or she is talking about –  even if you don’t.  Try to sound like an actual person with knowledge and experience, not like an anonymous, robotic textbook.

9. Organization  (Simplicity and Transparency) – Always write with a straightforward plan, outline or blueprint in mind. Don’t be afraid to announce or declare what you’re topic is and cue the reader as to the subject matter that will be covered in your essay while at the very leat hinting at, if not altogether revealing, the sequence of presentation. Show off your organizational skills in your introduction.

10. Closure – Always provide closure. Always write a conclusion. Make sure the ending of your paper is clearly indicated. Bring the reader full circle back to what was mentioned in your introduction and finish by leaving the reader with a taste of fresh insight and originality.

 

 

 

Academic English I – Midterm Review Guide

Academic English I – The Count of Monte Cristo –  Study Guide

 Chapters 1-10 (I-X)   

 Chapters 1-5Young Edmond Dantes, first mate of the Pharaon – a ship owned by the kind-hearted, fatherly Monsieur Morrel – arrives in port at Marseilles in France. He informs Monsieur Morrel  in private that Captain Leclere has died of a brain-fever while at sea and that he had delivered a letter to a group of Bonapartists on the Isle of Elba. Danglars, the envious “money-man” (purser) for the company, tries, but fails to discredit Edmond in the eyes of Monsieur Morrel. Instead, Morrel appoints Edmond to be the next captain of the Pharaon. Later, Edmond goes to see his father, whom he finds living in near poverty – because of a loan of 140 francs that he had to pay back to his greedy neighbor, Caderousse. Later, when Edmond visits his fiancée, Mercedes – a beautiful Catalan woman – he finds her in the midst of conversation with her jealous cousin, Fernand Mondego.  Edmond tries to extend his hand in friendship, but Fernand turns away. Later, Danglars and Fernand conspire to denounce Edmond as a Bonapartist (i.e. someone who supports the return to power of Napoleon Bonaparte). Because of this conspiracy against him, Edmond is arrested during his betrothal feast and taken away to jail by two gendarmes.  Meanwhile an ambitious young public prosecutor named Villefort is preparing to marry his first wife, Renee, the future mother of Valentine and daughter of two prominent aristocrats, Monsieur and Madame Saint-Meran.

Chapter 6-9 – When Edmond is first interrogated by Villefort, he explains that he was only delivering a package to the Isle of Elba on the instructions of Captain Leclere.  (In other words, don’t blame him, he was only the messenger.) The people he met there gave him another letter to deliver to a Monsieur Noirtier at: 13 Rue-Coq in Paris. Noirtier – who is a notorious political activist and supporter of Napoleon also happens to be Villefort’s father. Not wanting to compromise his father and hoping to save his own career, Villefort  burns the incriminating letter, and then, without telling Edmond, decides to sign off on sending Edmond to jail –  using as evidence the fraudulent letter signed by Danglars and Fernand and which Caderousse knew about.

Chapters 10-21 (X-XXI)

Chapter 10-15– While imprisoned at the Chateau d’If, Edmond makes the acquaintance of Abbe Faria, an aging priest and fellow prisoner. Abbe Faria is a shrewd, well-educated cleric, who, helps Edmond wake up to the fact that he has been betrayed by his enemies.  Over the course of the next 14 years, Abbe Faria helps to educate Edmond and tells him about the secret treasure that was hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo back  in the year 1498 by Cardinal Caesar Spada – before Spada was murdered (poisoned) by (Pope) Alexander VI. When Abbe Faria dies, Edmond takes his place in the death sack and is thrown into the sea. He survives and is rescued by a group of smugglers aboard a boat called the Jeune Amelie.  As fate would have it, the smugglers take him to Isle of Monte Cristo where their contraband is kept and after faking an injury, Edmond is able to find the hidden treasure. Later he hires a crew to extract the diamonds and jewels. With the help of Jacopo, a smuggler, he sends for news of his family; from Jacopo he learns that his father has died of hunger and that Mercedes has disappeared. Henceforth  – when not appearing under a series of disguises, he will be “re-born” as the Count of Monte Cristo who has sworn revenge (“justice” /”pay back”/ “settling of scores”) against his four principal enemies (Danglars, Fernand, Caderousse and Villefort) and their families.

Chapter 1619 A mysterious priest named Abbe Busoni  (Edmund in disguise) visits the hapless Caderousse who, along with his sickly wife, at an inn that doubles as a half-way house for smugglers. Explaining that he has been asked by Edmond Dantes to reward his “friends,” the mysterious priest (Busoni)  offers Caderousse a diamond valued at 50,000 francs – which Caderousse eventually sells for 45,000 francs.  Next, disguised as an English “representative” from the firm of Thomson and French, Edmund appears again at Marseilles and confers with Monsieur de Boville, the Inspector of Prisons and learns that Villefort had signed off on the document accusing Edmond Dantes of being an “ardent Bonapartist” (supporter of Napoleon). Still in disguise as the Englishman from Thomson and French,  Edmond helps to pay Monsieur Morrel’s debts and has the Pharaon rebuilt in gratitude to his former employer. After this, a note left for Julie Morrel and signed by “Sinbad the Sailor” instructs her to wait for instructions – whereupon she discovers a red purse filled with money that has been left to her as a “wedding dowry.”

Chapters 20-21Baron Franz D’Epinay and Albert de Morcerf are in Rome attending a carnival festival. In need of a carriage they make the acquaintance of the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo who agrees to help them find transportation – while regaling them with stories and discussing various methods of punishment. The Count invites them to witness the execution of Peppino (alias Rocca Priori) and Andrea  Rondolo—  by the Mazzolato method of execution. At the last minute, however, Peppino receives a reprieve and his life is spared, while Rondolo is clubbed to death with a mace.  Later, Albert de Morcerf is kidnapped by the notorious Italian bandit, Luigi Vampa and the Count arranges to have him released – thereby saving his life and putting Albert in debt to him.

Chapters (22-30) XXII-XXX  

Chapter 22: – In this chapter, the Count comes to visit Albert de Moncerf in Paris at 27 Rue du Helder. Along with Albert, he is introduced to some other prominent young aristocrats including: Lucien Debray, Monsieur Beauchamp, Monsieur de Chateau-Renaud, and Maximilien Morrel (the son of ship-owner, Monsieur Morrel) – all of them confounded by the Count’s mysterious origins. Chateau-Renaud mentions in passing his gratitude to Maximilien Morrel for saving his life; Morrel  explains that every September 5th he does something heroic in gratitude to the anonymous benefactor who helped his father out of bankruptcy.  During his visit, the Count regales the young gentlemen with anecdotes about his life (e.g. eating habits, familiarity with criminals); the Count in turn learns in passing that Albert is scheduled to marry Eugenie Danglars, the daughter of his great enemy (Danglars). The Count later inquires of Maximilien whether his sister (Julie) is happily married to which Maximilien replies that she has indeed been very happy with her husband, Emmanuel Herbaut. Note: This happy marriage is emblematic of the happy marriage that was to have taken place between Edmond and Mercedes. And of course it was the Count who anonymously provided Julie with her “red purse” dowry.

Chapter 23: In this chapter, Edmond meets Albert’s father and mother. He has kind words for the Count de Moncerf and after staring intently at a painting of a strikingly young brunette woman, recognizes Albert’s mother as the beautiful Catalan herself  – his former fiancée, Mercedes.  When she sees the Count and recognizes him, Mercedes almost faints, but doesn’t not acknowledge his true identity.

Chapter 24 – Although the Count announces his new address in Paris as 30 Avenue de Champs Elysees, he instructs his notary, Bertuccio, to take him to another house in Auteuil at 28 Rue de la Fontaine – a house that once belonged to the Marquis de Saint-Meran. Bertuccio is disturbed by this request, and when they arrive at the mansion, he turns as pale as a sheet before telling the Count a long story about his connection to this particular residence. It seems that Bertuccio’s brother was killed during reprisals against suspected Bonapartists back in the year 1815. Bertuccio blamed the public prosecutor, Villefort, for his brother’s demise, and swore a vendetta against him. To gain his revenge, he tracked Villefort down at home and attempted to slay him in the garden just as he was going out to bury a small box in the ground. He stabbed him once and apparently killed him, and then made off with the box. Inside the box, he found a baby boy, (Benedetto) still alive, whom he revived, and whom his sister  (Assunta) decided to raise as her adopted child. This boy grew up to be quite a hellion (bad seed) and caused Assunta much grief.  While Bertuccio was away from home, working as a smuggler, he chanced to witness Caderousse murdering both his wife (Madame Caderousse) and the jeweler to whom he had sold the diamond (for 45,000 francs) that he received from the mysterious priest. Bertuccio was originally arrested for this offense but later was released, but when he returned home, he discovered that the adopted “wild child,” Benedetto, and his hoodlum friends, had burned and killed Assunta in a fire after trying to steal money from her.

Chapters 25-30 – After being formally introduced to Monsieur Danglars and his wife, the Count informs this contentious couple that he has recently purchased two, prized, spirited gray horses; this causes a further rift between husband and wife until the Count graciously offer to give them back to Madame Danglars. Later, the Count’s mute Nubian servant, Ali,  subdues these same horses when Madame Danglars’ good friend, Madame Heloise de Villefort and her son, Edouard decide to take them for a spin in her carriage. As a result of these actions, the Count has successfully impressed some of the leading ladies of Paris. Later on, the Count has occasion to discuss the joys of chemistry with Madame de Villefort who is interested in the topic. He mentions how King Mithridates developed an immunity from poison by gradually developing a tolerance for them in small amounts; he also mentions how the “antispasmodic” medication she is somewhat familiar with can be used as a poison. Subsequent to this, Albert confides that he is unhappy with his formal engagement to Eugenie Danglars..

Chapters 31-40 (XXXI-XL)   

Chapter 31-34  – Benedetto is offered a chance to reinvent himself by someone named “Lord Wilmore” who also goes by the name of “Sinbad the Sailor.”  He is told to seek out the Count of Monte Cristo so that he can assume a new identity as the fictional Italian nobleman, Andrea Cavalcanti. Monsieur Noirtier, now confined to a wheelchair and able to communicate only by blinking, tries to help his granddaughter, Valentine, avoid an unwanted engagement to Franz D’Epinay, by threatening to cancel her inheritance.

Chapter 35-40 – The Count throws a gathering for various “guilty parties” at his new residence at the Rue de la Fontaine in Auteuil. He delights at Monsieur Villefort and Madame Danglars’ discomfort at visiting the house where they had a secret love affair twenty years prior – after which their secret “love child”  (Benedetto) was born. The Count advises Danglars to write a correspondence in Yanina to find out more about Fernand Mondego’s military service. This is sort of a background check to ensure that Albert (Fernand’s son)  is a good match for Eugenie.  Meeting in secret with Madame Danglars, Villefort frets over whether their secret love affair from 20 years ago will be made public; Danglars tells her that “the Count of Monte Cristo did not unearth the skeleton of a child in his garden” because no child was buried there – but he fears that someone (perhaps the Count) knows more than they’re letting on.

Chapters 41-50 (XLI-L)  

Chapters 41-43 – Valentine’s aristocratic grandfather, Monsieur de Saint-Meran has suddenly died and her grandmother, Madame de Saint-Meran soon dies as well. The suspected cause of death: poison. Valentine is further traumatized at the thought of having to marry into the family of the royalist, Franz d’Epinay. Monsieur Noirtier, however, instructs Franz to read the contents of a document that he has kept among his private papers relating the secret meeting of a Bonpartist club on Februaryr 5, 1815. Franz learns that his father (also known as General de  Quesnal)  -vafter being brought before the cabal and asked to join their secret society – refused and was later killed in a duel by none other than Monsieur Noirtier. Following this awkward episode, Franz rattles off an angry letter to Villefort  breaking off his engagement to Valentine.. Meanwhile Danglars tells an impatient Fernand (the Count de Morcerf) that the engagement between Albert (Morcerf) and Eugenie (Danglars) has been postponed. Secretly Danglars is arranging for Eugenie to marry the upstart Italian nobleman, Andrea Cavalcanti.

Chapter 44-46 – After innocently serving Barrois (Noirtier’s servant) some lemonade, Barrois drops dead. Noirtier who has sampled the same drink, mysteriously survives. Doctor D’Avrigny confirms that Barrois was poisoned with brucine. Andrea Cavalcanti  (alias Benedetto) meets with Caderousse (alias Monsieur Pailletin) who is threatening to expose the fact that the two have spent time in prison together. Andrea invites Caderousse to rob the Count’s home in Paris  (on the Champs-Elysses) while the Count is visiting his home in Auteuil. Without telling Caderousse, Andrea writes a letter warning the Count about the break-in; as a result, the Count catches Caderousse red-handed – who recognizes him as his former benefactor: “Abbe Busoni” and informs him that another mysterious stranger: “Lord Wilmore” had him released from prison at Toulon. (Note: This signifies the various attempts that Edmond Dantes has made – under various disguises  – to help Caderousse turn over a new leaf).  Later, Andrea (alias Benedetto) stabs Caderousse, killing him. The Count stands over the dead body and exclaims: “One!” as if to say “One down, three to go!”

Chapter 47-50 – While taking a brief vacation in Normandy with the Count, Albert first happily learns that he is no longer engaged to Eugenie, but then reads in the newspaper a story that claims his father, Fernand Mondego betrayed the Greek Ali Pasha to the Turks during the battle of Yanina. At Fernand’s tribunal, Ali Pasha’s daughter, Haydee, testifies that Fernand sold her and her mother, Vasiliki, into slavery to the slave merchant El Kobbir who then sold Haydee to the Count of Monte Cristo after her mother died. An angry Albert first confronts Danglars about his father’s disagrace; Danglars tells him that the Count was the one who advised him to write to Yanina for news of Fernand’s military service. Albert next confronts the Count at the Opera and challenges him to a duel.

Chapters 51-60 (LI-LX)  

Chapter 51-56– Before the duel can take place, Mercedes begs the Count to spare Albert’s life – and he relents intending to himself be killed during the duel. On the day of the duel, before the fighting begins, Albert apologies and the Count agrees to cancel the fight. While Albert and Mercedes pack their belongings and move out of their home, the disgraced Fernand confronts the Count of Monte Cristo, telling him :“it seems to me I’ve always known you and always hated you…” The Count then reveals himself as Edmond Dantes “come back from the grave.” Fernand realizes that he is being punished for having helped send  Edmond to prison many years ago. Instead of dueling with him as originally planned, he allows the Count to leave in peace and then puts a pistol to his head. (Two down, two to go.) Chapter 55- During a visit from Maximilien, Valentine complains of dizziness and then falls ill of an apparent poisoning; Maximilien rushes to get help from the Count, but at first the Count seems indifferent, until Maximilien tells him: “But I love her!” Eugenie and Andrea (alias Benedetto) get ready to sign their marriage contract when word spreads that the police are on the lookout for Andrea Cavalcanti – who soon flees the scene and becomes a fugitive from justice.

Chapter 57-60 – Eugenie Danglars, newly released from her wedding obligations, happily leaves town with her close friend, Louise d’Armilly. Together these two artist/musicians plan to travel around Europe with Eugenie dressed as a man. Meanwhile, Andrea, still on the run, leaves the inn he’s been staying at, but leaves a tie pin as collateral for the hotel bill. Soon after this, he is arrested an imprisoned at the Conciergerie. Using a secret door that connects his newly rented apartment with her bedroom chamber,  the Count disguised as a mysterious doctor, informs Valentine that someone is trying to poison her; later Valentine confirms that the culprit is none other than Heloise de Villefort, her step-mother. The Count gives her a green pill that will make it look like she is dead when really she is in a coma. When Valentine is discovered “apparently dead,” the next morning, there is intense grieving in the Villefort household.

Chapters 61-73 (LXI-LXXIII)

Chapter 61-63After hearing Danglars boast about how wealthy he is and how much unlimited credit he enjoys, the Count decides to “call his bluff” and demands 5 million francs up front. As it turns out, Danglars also owe Monsieur de Boville the same amount. Having been plunged into bankruptcy because of his own arrogance, Danglars decides to leave town in disgrace and sends a letter to his estranged wife, notifying her of his decision.  In the course of this chapter, we learn that Albert and his mother, Mercedes, have donated all of Fernard’s “dirty money” to hospitals. Now they are reduced to poverty.  Valentine’s funeral is held at the famous  Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. (But is her body really in the casket? Perhaps not.)  In order to stop a grief-stricken Maximilien from killing himself, the Count reveals that he was the mysterious benefactor who helped rescue Max’s father (Monsieur Morrel) from debt.

Chapter 63 – 65 Madame Danglars and her current love-interest and confidant, Lucien Debray are staying at the same hotel as Albert and Mercedes: at the Rue Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Madame Danglars reads a letter from her husband informing her of his decision to abandon the family.  Debray encourages her to travel as a way of forgetting her hardships. (We are told at the end of this chapter that Madame Danglars somehow has 1.5 million francs of accumulated wealth to live on while Mercedes has nothing.) Meanwhile, Albert informs his mother that he plans to join the military to earn enough for the two of them to live on. Debray briefly encounters Albert in the hallway – and deeply sympathizes with the plight of Mercedes. Bertuccio visits Andrea Cavalcanti (alias Benedetto) at the La Force prison where the most dangerous prisoners are kept. On the eve of the upcoming trial which Villefort will be prosecuting, Bertuccio promises to reveal to him(Benedetto) his biological father’s true identity (which we know to be Villefort.) After working feverishly to prepare for the upcoming trial, Villefort vows to punish all of the guilty.  Sipping a cup of hot chocolate (which has not been poisoned fortunately), he next confronts his wife, Madame Heloise de Villefort, about all of the people she has poisoned or tried to poison (the Saint-Merans, Barrois,, Valentine?, Noirtier). He tells her she must take poison herself as punishment for her crimes or else he will have her arrested.

Chapter 66-67 –  During his trial, Benedetto freely admits his crimes (killing Caderousse, etc.) and reveals that Villefort is his biological father. Madame Danglars, (his biological mother) anxiously watches from the gallery, then faints, then goes into a fit of hysteria before being taken out. Returning home in a daze, Villefort frantically tries to stop his wife (Heloise) from taking the poison, but finds that it is too late: she has not only taken the poison but has given some to young Edouard as well. Both will soon be dead, Villefort will give way to a fit of insanity, and the “fall” of house of Villefort will be complete.  (Three down, one to go.) At this point in the story, the Count realizes that his “thirst for vengeance” may have gone too far – leading to the death of “innocent parties” such as Edouard.

Epilogue – Chapter 68-73 : After the Count’s manipulation of the bond market, Danglars is left with only a destroyed reputation and 5,000,000 francs he has been holding in deposit for hospitals. The Count demands this sum to fulfill their credit agreement, and Danglars embezzles the hospital fund. Abandoning his wife, Danglars flees to Italy with the Count’s receipt, hoping to live in Vienna in anonymous prosperity. While leaving Rome, he is kidnapped by the Count’s agent Luigi Vampa and is imprisoned the same way that Albert was. Forced to pay exorbitant prices for food, Danglars eventually signs away all but 50,000 francs of the stolen five million (which Dantès anonymously returns to the hospitals). Nearly driven mad by his ordeal, Danglars finally repents his crimes. Dantès forgives Danglars and allows him to leave with his freedom and the money he has left. Maximilien Morrel, believing Valentine to be dead, contemplates suicide after her funeral. Dantès reveals his true identity and explains that he rescued Morrel’s father from bankruptcy, disgrace and suicide years earlier.Travelling with him back to Marseilles, he persuades Maximilien to delay his suicide for a month. On the island of Monte Cristo a month later, Dantès presents Valentine to Maximilien and reveals the true sequence of events. Having found peace, Dantès leaves for an unknown destination to find comfort and a new life with Haydée, who has declared her love for him.

 

 

 

 

 

Academic English I – The Count of Monte Cristo – Vocabulary – List #2 (REVISED LIST)

 

Word                                   Definition + List of Synonyms

 

1.  adroit (adj)                                skillful,  handy, coordinated, adept, dexterous, graceful, resourceful

 

2.  affable (adj)                               friendly, cordial, congenial, courteous, gracious, sociable, simpatico, approachable

 

3.  alacrity  (noun)                        joyful readiness, willingness, eagerness, fervor,  promptness,  avidity, speech, sprightliness

 

4.  acrimony (noun)                       bitterness,  hostility, ill will, rancor, malice, spite, enmity, waspishness, spitefulness

 

5.  beckon (verb)                            gesture, signal, wave, sum, coax, lure, motion, draw, attract

 

6.  bravado (noun)                         male machismo, self-confidence, swagger, bluster, braggadocio

 

7.  cabal (noun)                               group, sect, cell, faction, coterie, junta,  lobby (group), conspiracy

 

8.  capricious (adj)                        fickle, changeable, flighty, fanciful, whimsical, unpredictable, moody, mercurial

 

9.  celerity (noun)                         speed, velocity,  haste,  hurry, quickness, rapidity,  alacrity, swiftness, vivacity, legerity

 

10. conscript (verb)                    draft,  induct, conscribe, requisition, order, call-up

 

11. contraband (noun)               stolen, smuggled, prohibited, bootlegged goods

 

12. defer (verb)                            submit to, respect, acknowledge the authority of bow to, submit to, yield to, give way to

 

13. dexterity (noun)                   skill with hands,  adroitness, adeptness, proficiency, facility, coordination

 

14. disparage (verb)                  criticize, vilify, discredit, ridicule, belittle, denigrate, impugn, mock, scorn, traduce, slam

 

15. dormant (adj)                       asleep, resting, hibernating, passive, inactive, inert, latent, quiescent

 

16. dupe (noun or verb)           NOUN: gullible person , rube, dolt, chump, blockhead, sucker ; VERB: deceive, hoodwink, trick

 

17. enmity (noun)                       antagonism, ill will, friction, rancor, resentment, hatred, spite, antipathy,  loathing,, aversion

 

18. erudite (adj)                          literate, book smart, scholarly, well-read, knowledgeable, sophisticated, highbrow,

cerebral, brainy, literary, bookish

 

19. exculpate (verb)                  clear (of blame), acquit, vindicate,, exonerate, reprieve

 

20.  feign (verb)                           put-on, pretend, play-act, pose, fake, bluff, masquerade, malinger

 

21. fetters (noun)                       shackles, chains, reigns, hampers, trammels, manacles, cuffs

 

22. forsake (verb)                       abandon, desert, jilt, dump, ditch, jettison, relinquish, dispense, disown ,scrap

 

23. grandeur (noun)                  greatness, splendor, magnificence, eminence, majesty, pomp, stateliness

 

24. gratuitous (adj)                    freely-offered,  undue,  unnecessary, unprovoked, wanton, excessive, unmerited,

 

25. hapless (adj)                         unfortunate, unlucky, jinxed, cursed, star-crossed, forlorn, woebegone

 

26. haughty (adj)                        arrogant, snobbish, vain, conceited, supercilious, patronizing,, scornful, disdainful, snooty,

uppity

 

27. hew (verb)                             hack, sever, rend, chop, cleave, whack, whittle,  slash, cut

 

28. incarcerate (verb)             imprison, jail, lock up, sequester, confine, intern,  quarantine, hold captive

 

29. incredulous (adj)               unbelieving, skeptical , suspicious, distrustful, dubious, unconvinced, cynical

 

30. impassive (adj)                   unfeeling, unresponsive,  unemotional, cold, callous, blank, poker-faced, stoical

 

 

Word                                           Definition +  Synonyms

 

31. incognito (noun or adj)                 disguise, mask, camouflage, mummery

 

32. ingress (noun)                                  entrance, access, entryway, entree

 

33. juxtapose (verb)                              compare, contrast, collocate, place side-by-side

 

34. languid (adj)                                     relaxed, unhurried, laid-back, listless, lethargic, slow, sluggish, lazy, idle, indolent

 

35. lattice (noun)                                    cross-hatching, trellis, window, framework

 

36. laud/laudable (verb/adj)            praise, extol, hail, applaud, acclaim, commend, lionize, rhapsodize, eulogize, rave

 

37. metamorphosis (noun)               change, transformation,  growth, mutation, maturation, alteration, modification

 

38. misanthrope (noun)                     people-hater, cynic, recluse, hermit, grouch, grump, curmudgeon

 

39. miscreant (noun)                          lawbreaker, delinquent, hoodlum, malefactor, rascal, law-breaker, derelict, thug

 

40. nabobs (noun)                                notables, dignitaries, VIPs, celebrities, rich people, jet-setters

 

41. nautical (adj)                                   oceanic, ocean-related, marine, naval, seafaring, boating, sailing

 

42. occult (adj)                                       magical,  secret, esoteric, supernatural

 

43. officious (adj)                                  meddlesome, intrusive, overbearing,, domineering,, bumptious, pushy, bossy

 

44. opportune (adj)                              fortunate, propitious, favorable, advantageous, felicitous, timely, convenient, apt,

fitting, convenient

 

45. pandemonium (noun)                 mayhem, bedlam, chaos, uproar, turmoil, commotion, confusion, anarchy, furor,

hubbub, rumpus, hullabaloo, hoopla

 

46. parched (adj)                                   dry, arid, dessicated, dehydrated, baked, burned, scorched, withered, shriveled, sere

 

47. quarantine (verb or noun)          isolate, confine, seclude, sequester, segregate

 

48. remonstrate (verb)                       argue, (with) protest, resist, haggle, oppose, deplore, condemn, denounce,  make-a- fuss,

raise a  ruckus, cause a stink

 

49  reprieve (noun or verb)              pardon, spare, forgive, release, grant amnesty to

 

50. savant (noun)                                  prodigy, pundit, scholar, wunderkind,  genius (in one area)

 

51. sentinel (noun)                              watchman, guard, sentry

 

52. slander (verb)                                vilify, besmirch, smear, libel,  defame, malign, tarnish, denigrate, disparage

 

53. temperate (adj)                             moderate,  restrained, disciplined, self-controlled

 

54. transitory (adj)                              brief, short-lived, ephemeral, momentary, fleeting, passing, evanescent

 

55. unadulterated (adj)                     pure, unmixed, untainted, unsoiled, unsullied

 

56. verdant (adj)                                  green, lush, grassy, leafy, rich, verdurous

 

57. vociferous (adj)                             noisy, clamorous, shrill, shouting, boisterous, loud-mouthed, ranting, vehement,

uproarious

 

58. vulgar/vulgarity (noun)            crude, distasteful, coarse, indecent, naughty, lewd, salacious, smutty, filthy, profane,

risqué, ribald, bawdy, obscene

 

59. wanton (adj)                                   reckless,  wayward,  loose, shameless, immodest, promiscuous, unchaste, aimless

 

60. waylay (verb)                                 ambush, attack, assail, mug, “hold up,” detain, intercept, pounce on

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short Story Review Guide

Sophomore English – World Lit Short Stories – Part II – Study Guide –

“Rhinoceros” by Eugene Ionesco (France/Romania)

Subject Matter: political upheaval, social change/disruption, social conformity/non-conformity, irrational behavior, crowd dynamics, “group-think,” collective psychosis, rhinos, savagery/brutality, fascism, rationality, humanism, public opinion, majorities and minorities

Setting: France, 1930s

Characters:  Narrator, Jean, Daisy (typist), Emile Dudard (chief jurist), Botard (archivist), Madame Boeuf,

Key Plot Details:  café, rhinoceros-on-the-loose, market stalls, housewife’s basket, tiresome paradoxes, Sundays, promise to give up drinking, woman with injured cat, argument about Asian and African rhinos, Madame Boeuf faints, fire brigade, logicians becomes a rhinoceros, mutations, narrator’s too-white body

Important Dialogue/Description: “Perhaps it has escaped from the zoo…” – “Perhaps it belongs to the circus…” – “All cats are mortal.” – “I’ve not seen it and I don’t believe it.” – “Collective psychosis, just like religion, the opium of the people.” – “I believe in flying saucers, myself.” – “What’s the matter with your skin? It’s like leather…” –  “Humanism is out of date!” – “I’ll trample on you! I’ll trample on you!” –  “Perhaps after all it’s we who need saving. Perhaps we are the abnormal ones. Do you see anyone else like us?” – “I’m rather ashamed of what you call love, that morbid thing….It cannot compare with the extraordinary energy displayed by all these beings we see around us.” – “We ought to try to interpret their psychology, to learn their language.” – “The only way out is to convince them. But of what? Were these mutations reversible?” – “They’re still in the minority, however…That won’t last long.” –  “Listen to me Daisy. We shall have children, and then they will have children. It’ll take time, but between us we can regenerate humanity.” – “Alas, I would never become a rhinoceros. I could never change.”

Plot Summary: When people begin turning into rhinoceroses, the narrator and his friend Daisy vow to resist the transformation. But as the rhino herds begin to outnumber humans, Daisy is unable to resist the pressure to conform. Eventually the narrator is the only human left. Though he now finds his humanity odd and distasteful, he cannot bring himself to abandon it.

Possible Themes/Motifs: Beware of the “group-think” mentality. The majority is always wrong. The sleep of reason breeds monsters. Dare to be different. Unthinking conformity is akin to insanity.

“Black Girl” by Sembene Ousmane (Senegal)

Subject Matter: French colonialism, class divisions, racial divisions, job opportunities, dreams/aspirations, vacations, servitude, isolation, disappointment/despair, suicide

Setting: France/Algeria, 1950s

Characters: Diouana, Madame Pouchet, Mademoiselle Dubois, Samba, Tive Corra (the old sailor)

Key Plot Details: two women hunched together – crying, locked bathroom, coroner, born in 1927, Tive Correa’s inebriety (drunkenness), angry Samba hits Diouana, Tive Correa’s advice, Madame Pouchet accuses Diouana of lying, dirty, locked bathroom, cut throat

Important Dialogue/Description: “Which pane did you break?” –  “According to her passport, she was born in 1927.” – “Why do you think it was suicide?” – “Viye Madame.”- “You’re not going to tell me at the last moment, on this very day, that you’re leaving us in the lurch?” – “That hurt.” -“Did you give Monsieur your identity card?” – “I, whom you see this way, ruin though I am today, I know France better than you do.” – “What young African doesn’t dream of going to France? Unfortunately, they confuse living in France with being a servant in France…In my country, Casamance, we say that darkness pursues the moth.” – “You are dirty in spite of everything. You might have left the bathroom clean.” – “I don’t like liars and you are a liar.” – “Homesick African Girl Cuts Throat in Antibes.”

Plot Summary: A young Senegalese maid accept her employers’ offer to return with them to France. An old sailor warns her not to go, because young mistakenly Africans think that going to France will increase their opportunities for success. Diouana however wants to pursue her dream. In France she becomes increasingly withdrawn and resentful as she finds herself overworked and isolated by prejudice. When Madame Pouchet accuses her of lying, Diouana locks herself in a bathroom and commits suicide.

Themes/Motifs: Be careful what you wish for – it may not turn out the way you planned.  Isolation is the first symptom of despair. Dreams may sometimes turn into nightmares.. No one else sees your suffering.

“No Witchcraft for Sale” by Doris Lessing (Zimbabwe/Rhodesia)

Subject Matter: colonialism, racial attitudes, class divisions, snake bites, injuries, medicine, folk remedies, cultural legacies/secrets,  religion, modern science

Setting: Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), 1950s

Characters: the Farquars, Teddy, Gideon

Key Plot Details: “Little Yellow Head” Teddy (only child), Teddy’s scooter,  Gideon’s youngest son – “Piccanin,” – Teddy’s eye injury (fists to his eyes); snake venom, Gideon’s magic root, cure, scientist, long trek into the veld, blue flowers, Gideon – the son of a famous medicine man

Important Dialogue/Description:  “Ah, missus, these are both children, and one will grow up to be a baas (boss) and one will be a servant.”“Picannin – get out of my way!” – “He’s only a black boy.” –  “Wait a minute, missus, I’ll get some medicine.” – “His eyes will get better.” – “Gideon, God chose you as an instrument of his goodness.” – “…while all of them knew that in the bush of Africa are waiting valuable drugs locked in bark, in simple-looking leaves, in roots, it was impossible to ever get the truth about them from the natives themselves.” – “Nonsense…these things get exaggerated in the telling. We are always checking up on this kind of story, and we draw a blank every time.” –   “I will show you the root.” –  “But I did show you, missus, have you forgotten?” – “You old rascal, Gideon, Do you remember that time you tricked us all by making us walk milees all over the veld for nothing?”  – “Ah Little Yellow Head, how you have grown! Soon you will be grown-up with a farm of your own…”

Plot Summary: The Farquars feel close to Gideon, their black cook, who shares their Christian beliefs and loves their son Teddy. When a tree snake spits venom into the child’s eyes, Gideon uses a plant to save the child’s sight. But when a scientist visits to learn about the miraculous plant, Gideon reacts as if the Farquars have betrayed him and refuses to cooperate.

Themes/Motifs:  Not everything that belongs to a person can be shared with others. Always protect the source of your power. Secrets are only valuable when they remain secret. Some things cannot be given over to modern science. Cultural integrity demands cultural privacy.

“The Moment before the Gun Went Off” by Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)

Subject Matter: legacy of apartheid, racial divisions, trucks, kudu (antelope) hunting, terrible gun accidents, public opinion, publicity, perception and misperception, father and son dynamics

Setting: South Africa, 1970s? 1980s?

Characters: Marais Van der Vyver, Lucas, Van der Vyver’s wife, Alida

Key Plot Details:  Van der Vyver left his house at 3:00 p.m., herd of kudu (antelope), rifle with .300 ammunition, Lucas standing up in the back of the truck, pot-hole, gun goes off, agitators/protests, newpaper clippings, police station burning, Lucas was Vand der Vyver’s son

Important Dialogue/Description: “…that when Van der Vyver is quoted saying he is ‘terribly shocked,’ he will ‘look after the wife and children,’ none of those Americans and English, and none of those people at home who want to destroy the white man’s power will believe him.” –  “Because nothing the government can do will appease the agitators and the whites who encourage them. Nothing satisfies them, in the cities: blacks can sit and drink in white hotels, now the Immorality Act has gone, blacks can sleep with whites…It’s not even a crime any more.” – “The parents hold her [the mother of Lucas] as if she were a prisoner or a crazy woman to be restrained. But she says nothing, does nothing.”  “How will they ever know, when they file newspaper clippings, evidence, proof, when they look at the photographs and see his face- guilty! Guilty! They are right! – how will they know, when the police stations burn will all the evidence of what has happened now, and what the law made a crime in the past.” –  “How could they know that they do not know. Anything.” – “The young black callously shot through the negligence of the white man was not the farmer’s boy; he was his son.”

Plot Summary:  A young black man dies when his employer’s gun accidentally discharges. The narrator says that people will misunderstand the incident as another example of white South Africans’ brutality toward blacks. Gradually, the reader learns that Marais Van der Vyver grieves not just because he has caused a death but because the dead man was his illegitimate son.

Themes/Motifs: People looking from a distance cannot understand a situation. The personal is the political. All politics is local. Dividing the world into “black” and “white” is dangerously simplistic.

“The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses” Bessie Head (South Africa)

Subject Matter:  prison, harsh conditions, bosses, authority figures, leaders and followers, group dynamics, group solidarity, collusion, theft, cooperation, race relations

Setting: South Africa, 1960s? 1970s? 1980s?

Characters: Brille, Warder Hannetjie, prisoners of Span One

Key Plot Details: Span One, Brille’s glasses, Brille’s thin frame and knobbly knees, the new warder: Hannetjie, dropped cabbage, knobkerrie club, Brille’s twelve children fighting each other, bogeyman, tobacco, isolation tank,  five bags of fertilizer, jacket, tirade from the chief prison official, Hennetjie digging/working alongside Span One, stealing commodities

Important Dialogue/Description: “Who dropped that cabbage?” – “I don’t take orders from a kaffir!” – “I’m twenty years older than you.” – Never mind brother…what happens to one of us, happens to all.” – “I’ll try to make up for it, comrades…I’ll steal something so that you don’t go hungry.” – “Prison is an evil life…It makes a man contemplate all kinds of evil deeds.” – “One of these days we are going to run the country. You are going to clean my car. Now, I have a fifteen-year-old son, and I’d die of shame if you had to tell him that I ever called you Baas.” – “This thing between you and me must end. You may not know it, but I have a wife and children, and you’re driving me to suicide.” – “It’s not tobacco we want, but you…we want you on our side.”

Plot Summary: The black political prisoners in Span One have managed to intimidate all of their white jailers except Warder Hannetjie. The sharp-eyed newcomer makes their lives miserable until Brille catches him stealing fertilizer. Then the tables are turned until the warder asks for a truce. In exchange for humane treatment, Span One agrees to keep the warder’s secret; they even help him steal more fertilizer.

Themes/Motifs: Genuine authority is stronger than brute force. History rewards suffering for a just cause. The Zeitgeist  [spirit of the times] favors the underdog. Needless antagonisms will vanish over time. People with a common interest can actually work together.

“Another Evening at the Club” by Alifa Rifaat (Egypt)

Subject Matter: class divisions, men and women, husbands and wives, servants and masters, fear, guilt, freedom, security, luxury, privilege

Setting: Cairo, Egypt – 1960s? 1970s?

Characters:  Samia, Abboud Bey, Gazia

Key Plot Details: rocking chair, wide wooden verandah, dowry, coffee in Japanese cups, lighting father’s cigarette, Inspector of Irrigation, emerald ring, pat on the cheeks,  light-headed from drinking beer, lost ring, Gazia’s tears, call to the Inspector of Police, pat on both cheeks like a slap in the face, Samia’s uncontrollable trembling, dark shape of a boat, supper at the club, Samia smiling

Important Dialogue/Description: “Tell people you’re from the well-known Barakat family and that your father was a judge.” – “Where’s the ring?” – “May Allah blind me if I’ve set eyes on it.” – “You’ve got just 15 seconds to say where…or else I swear to you, you’re not going to have a good time of it.” – “I’ll leave the matter in your capable hands – I know your people have their ways and means.” – “I’m sorry. I can’t think how it could have happened. What do we do now?” – “Listen, there’s nothing to be done but to give it to me and the next time I go down to Cairo I’ll sell it and get something else in its place. We’d be the laughingstock of the town…”  – “For a moment she was on the point of protesting and in fact uttered a few words.”  – “… he bent over her and with both hands gently patted her on the cheeks. It was a gesture she had long become used to, a gesture that promised her continued security…” – “…now for the first time the gesture came like a slap in the face.” – “By the time she had turned round from the window she was smiling.”

Plot Summary: When an emerald ring is lost, Abboud Bey accuses not his wife Samia, but her maid, Gazia, of committing the theft. While the girl is being interrogated, Samia discovers the ring. She wants to clear the girl’s name, but her husband says that the girl will be released soon and that revealing the truth would expose them to ridicule. Samia reacts to his reassurances as if she has been slapped, but quickly realizes the benefits of being Bey’s spoiled, protected wife.

Themes/Motifs:  Don’t “sell” your integrity. Someone else must suffer so that I may prosper. Fear can lead to desperate forms of self-preservation. Sometimes (unfortunately) security is more important than freedom. Women pay dearly for the luxuries they crave. Women should not have to choose between “loyalty to men” and “loyalty toward other women.”

“The Happy Man” by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)

Subject Matter: happiness, mental health, medicine, psychiatry, coping (survival) strategies,  psychological attitudes (involvement vs. detachment), problems and difficulties, social ills, suffering, the price of caring, maintaining sanity in a troubled world

Setting: Egypt, 1970s

Characters: narrator, Uncle Bashir (servant), narrator’s rival, doctor of internal medicine, nerve specialist (doctor), gland specialist (doctor), psychiatrist

Key Plot Details:  waking up happy, breakfast, newspaper building, narrator’s rival, engineer son in Canada, Racism, Vietnam, Palestine (current events/problems), “tyrannical happiness,”  “the sound of his own guffaws [smiles],” “parade of bloody tragedies”, memories of unhappy times, wife’s death, narrator’s insomnia,  examination room, visits to internal medicine specialist, nerve specialist, gland specialist, psychiatrist

Important Dialogue/Description: “You get angry a lot and have fierce arguments with your neighbors.” – “You’ve changed a great deal overnight.” – “So then, you think it’s necessary to be able to take a balanced view of events.” – “It was a tyrcannical happiness, despising all misery and laughing at any hardship; it wanted to laugh, dance, sing, and distribute its spirit of laughter, dancing and singing among the various problems of the world.” –  “It’s an incredible feeling which can’t be defined in any other way, but it’s very serious.” – “I’ve twice as much to worry about as I have to make me feel glad.” – “Consult a gland specialist!” – “The truth is, Doctor, that I ‘ve come to see you because I’m happy!” – “You’re a miracle!” – “Nothing like that. But I get a similar case in my clinic at least once a week!” -“But is it a disease?” – “All the cases are still under treatment.”

Plot Summary: A man wakes up feeling unnaturally happy. He stops arguing with people, is gracious to a rival, and accepts his son’s decision to live abroad. However, he can take nothing seriously, not the current problems of the world, not even the memories of his wife’s death. A psychiatrist says he is perfectly sane and that at least one new patient a week complains of a similar kind of “debilitating happiness.”

Themes/Motifs: Continuous happiness is not a natural condition for a human being. Personal happiness is not as important as empathy. Happiness is not authentic if it disconnects us from other people and their suffering.

“Saboteur” by Ha Jin (China)

Subject Matter: Communist ideology, China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1969), police force apparatus, political systems, conformity, non-conformity, corruption, injustice, crime,  punishment, freedom, disobedience, revenge

Setting: China, 1960s (during Cultural Revolution)

Characters: Mr. Chiu, his bride, the police, communist party members, donkey-faced officer, Fenjin

Key Plot Details: Muji Train station, two railroad policemen, tea, air that smells like rotten melon, Mr. Chiu’s hepatitis, Mr. Chiu’s liver, spilled hot tea, wet sandal,  Mr. Chiu’s injured fingers, police station, cleaver chopping rhythmically, Cultural Revolution (“all citizens were equal before the law”), lecturer at Harbin University,  Mr. Chiu’s harangue, witness statements, fever and chills, heart disease and hepatitis medication,  Fenjin the lawyer, Fenjin’s torture, “reactionary” crime, blue folder, going from restaurant to restaurant eating soup, Mr. Chiu’s jaundiced face, hepatitis epidemic

Important Dialogue/Description: “See you dumped tea on our feet.” – “You’re lying. You wet your shoes yourself.” – “Your man hit my fingers with a pistol.” – “Now you have to admit you are guilty.” – “What if I refuse to cooperate?” – “Then your lawyer will continue his education in the sunshine.” –  “….you don’t even have to write out your self-criticism (confession). We have your crime described clearly here. All we need is your signature.” – “After two days’ detention, I have realized the reactionary nature of my crime. From now on, I shall continue to educate myself with all my effort…” “It doesn’t matter. They are savages.” – “If only I could kill all the bastards!”

Plot Summary: When a policeman throws tea on his sandals, Mr. Chiu protests. He finds himself in jail, confronting false “eyewitness accounts” of how he caused a disturbance at the railway station. When his scholarly training prompts him to argue, he finds himself in jail without his hepatitis medicine. To get the police tot stop torturing his lawyer, he signs a prepared confession. Then, spreading hepatitis germs as widely as possible. Mr. Chiu becomes the saboteur the police had named him.

Themes/Motifs:  Political repression never succeeds. Those to whom evil is done [will] do evil in return. You must become the dragon to defeat the dragon. Oppression will unleash chaos and destruction.

“Tokyo” by Fumiko Hayashi (Japan)

Subject Matter: survival, wartime poverty, work, love, empathy, compassion, random acts of kindness, suffering and loss, appreciation, joy amid the ruins

Setting: Toyko, Japan, 1940s

Characters: Ryo, Tsuruishi, Ryukichi + Ryo’s missing husband

Key Plot Details: windy afternoon, rucksack, rusty iron, street vendors, Shizuoka tea for sale. stove fire, Shitaya district, Siberia, Amur River, cabin on the bomb site, Asakusa district, Goddess of Mercy, garish lantern, “Merry Teahouse,”  rain storm/downpour, movie theater,  small inn,  Ryo’s wet hair, two bowls of spaghetti, quilted bedrolls,  night spent at the inn, Ryo and Tsuru’s embrace, bomb site, Tsuruishi’s death,  delivery truck/iron bars,  accident on narrow bridge, sketchbook, pile of broken concrete, baseball cap, body of dead kitten, four sewing women around oil stove, busy needles, feeling of warmth

Important Dialogue/Description: “Tea for sale! Would you like some tea, please?” – “It’s all a matter of luck, you know! You’ll probably have a good day tomorrow.” –  “My husband’s still in Siberia. That’s why I have to work like this.” –  “I was in Siberia myself! I spent three years chopping wood near the Amur River.” – “I look after that iron out there and help load the trucks.” –  “I suppose people in this inn think we’re married.” – “War, always war!” –  “Ryo…Ryo.” – “It’s wrong you know…wrong to my husband…” – “Did that man die, Mamma?” – “He fell into a river.” –  “Don’t worry if you get pregnant…I’ll look after you whatever happens, Ryo.” – “Mamma, I want a sketchbook. You said I could have a sketchbook.” – “Come in and rest a while, if you like. I’ll see how much money we’ve got left. We may have enough for some tea.” –  “The women were like herself…as she watched their busy needles moving in and out of the material.” –   “A feeling of warmth came over her.”

Plot Summary: Ryo has not seen her husband, a prisoner of war in Siberia for six years. She supports herself and her child by selling tea. Ryo begins to think she might find happiness with a kind-hearted laborer, Tsuruishi, but he is killed in a freak accident. Stunned, Ryo decides to stay in Tokyo rather than return to the country. When four seamstresses let her rest by their fire, Ryo feels warmth again.

Themes/Motifs:  All things must pass. The wheel of fortune keeps turning for good or for ill. Life keeps handing us “surprises” whether we want them or not. Change is the only rule of life. Kindness and compassion can redeem/make up for the worst situations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short Story Unit – Vocabulary

World Lit Short Story Unit – Vocabulary List

cryptic

discreet

melancholy

solicitude

occult

peruse/perusal

derelict

exorcise

imperceptible

maneuver

arbitrary

diabolic

misanthrope

insomnia

pedantic

flout

poachers

seminary

theology

desolate

inveterate

pensively

stately

usury

banal

itinerant

avant-garde

psychosis

humanism

morbid

mutations

Notes on Black Boy – Part 2

Richard Wright’s Black Boy

Chapter 15

Richard relocates to Chicago, Illinois in the year 1927. He is at first amazed at the lack of segregated facilities and the apparent lack of tension between whites and blacks. Moreover, he is somewhat relieved at not having to face hostility from whites on a daily basis, but is also intimidated by his strange, new, urban-industrial surroundings.  He and his Aunt Maggie go to stay with Aunt Cleo in her apartment. Richard notes that her husband, “a product of the southern plantation,” has abandoned her much like his own father had done. (261-263)

Richard finds work as a porter (or delivery boy) with the Hoffmanns,  an immigrant Jewish couple who treat him fairly and as an equal. Despite their generosity, Richard is not sure whether he can fully trust them and their motives. Instead of telling them about an upcoming postal examination, he lies and says that he has to miss work for three days so that he can attend his mother’s funeral in Memphis. The Hoffmans see through the lie, but Richard refuses to admit the truth and the damage is done. (263-269)

Soon after this, Richard finds another job at a new restaurant called the North Side cafe. While working as a busboy, he notices that Tillie, a Finnish cook has been spitting in the food. When he and another black employee inform the owner, she confirms that they are telling the truth and the cook is fired. (270-277)

Chapter 16

Richard meets the cynical Irish chap and the “gang” of Irish, Jewish and Negro free-thinkers or non-religious types  (285)

Richard joins a literary group of Negro literary bohemians and would-be artists and poseurs obsessed with sex relations (285). He is disappointed by their crass gossip and lack of genuine seriousness . He is somewhat more impressed by the commitment of the Garveyites and their “Back to Africa” movement (286)

Richard finds his job at the post office cutting back hours – He notices demonstrations on the street with “Reds” picketing City Hall b/c of the Stock Market Crash of 1929 – millions of people have suddenly been thrown out of work (287)

Richard finds work with several burial and insurance societies – selling policies to illiterate black people – During this time, Richard has a brief and unsatisfying affair with a simple-minded woman who is obsessed with going to the circus and cannot share Richard’s interest in books (289-292)

Richard observes how the other black insurance agents are very territorial about their “kept women.” (292-293)

Richard is somewhat amused by the Negro Communists and their personal mannerisms. Careless with their outward dress, they wear Lenin caps and v-necks in an obvious attempt to emulate Lenin, Stalin and their fellow white comrades. It seems they are trying very hard to fit in and be accepted by the party. (294-295)

The Negro Communists hope to foment revolution among black people but Richard doesn’t think that American blacks will rebel. The Communists also openly ridicule God and religion. (296-297)

Richard witnesses “Big Bill Thompson” and other Republican party bosses “buying up” the Negro vote – so in the election booth he writes: I protest this fraud. (298)

Chapter 17

Richard goes to work as an orderly at a medical research institute in one of the largest and wealthiest hospitals in Chicago. Richard notices there a division of workers along racial and class lines. (303)

One employee named Bill – drunk or hung-over most of the time – scares Richard with his inane solutions to social problems (303-304)

Brand plays a prank on Richard making it seem like it’s dangerous for him to inhanle Nembutal while helping one of the doctors operate on a dog. (305)

A young employee tells Richard he needs to measure the time it takes for him to clean rooms for efficiency’s sake and Richard gets upset at being observed doing menial chores. “Why don’t you work for a change?” he tells him. (306-307)

Brand and Cooke argue about which newspaper is better the Chicago Tribune or the Herald-Examiner and get into a knife fight. As a result of this, they end up knocking over animal cages and several animals are let loose (309, 310,311)

Later on, the doctors don’t seem to notice that some of the animals have been put back in the wrong cages . When the doctor calls for A-Z rabbit number 14, he doesn’t notice that it’s a different rabbit. (313)

Richard ends the chapter reflecting on how the black employees have been marginalized and kept sequestered with the animals in the “underworld corridors” of the hospital. (314)

Chapter 18

Richard receives an invitation one Thursday from a group of ‘white boys,” many of whom have joined the Communist party. Richard attends a meeting and is encouraged by Sol to join the Chicago chapter of the John Reed Club.  (315-316)

Richard visits the John Reed Club out of curiosity and meets Grimm. He is introduced to revolutionary periodicals and literature  such as “Masses” and “Left Front”. (306-307)

Richard’s mother becomes suspicious of the Communists literature he has been reading (319-320)

Richard begins to notice factions forming and in-fighting among the communists (322-323) The first rift that involves him is a conflict between the writers and the artists. (322-323).

One day, Richard befriends a painter named Young who becomes very active in party circles, but ends up denouncing another young artist named Swann. Richard later learns that Young had been a mental patient. (324-327)

Chapter 19

Richard attends his first unit cell meeting on the South Side of Chicago and gets to know the Negro organizer. At his first meeting, however, as he reads his report, he is met by laughter and giggles. Even with only an eighth-grade education, he has been branded as an “intellectual“ by the other Negro communists – who are patronizing and condescending about his ambitions to be a writer. Richard finds himself the object of ridicule because he “talks like a book…” (329-331)

Richard is further shocked to learn that these Communists do not encourage book-reading or literacy in general. One comrade tells him “Reading bourgeois books can only confuse you…” – “Didn’t Lenin read books?” Richard replies to which the other replies: “But you’re not Lenin.” (331)

Richard chooses to do some “biographical sketches” on a party member named Ross who is facing an indictment for “inciting a riot.” When word spreads as to Richard’s writing project, other party members advise him to drop it. Richard objects to having been branded as a renegade “intellectual”  (i.e. a Trotskyite) – while being told that he must “prove his revolutionary loyalty” through action. Evans for example suffered a head injury during a recent demonstration. Richard is baffled by the resistance the party has to his own independent brand of thinking. When threatened indirectly with being labeled a Trotskyite, Richard objects that he knows nothing about the man and can’t fathom what is meant by “counter-revolutionary activity”. (332-333-334)

As Richard doggedly continues with his biography of Ross, he learns that Ross has been charged with “anti-leadership tendencies,” “class collaborationist attitudes” and “ideological factionalism” – phrases so fanciful that he is confused by their meaning. One night his fellow black comrades order him to stay away from Ross – advising him that “members of the party do not violate the party’s decisions.” (340-341)

Buddy Nealson, a member of the Communist International, arrives in Chicago to rid the party of all of its “Negro Trotskyite elements.” (346)

While planning for an upcoming writer’s conference in the spring of 1935, Richard experiences first-hand the northern brand of race discrimination when he has difficulty finding a place to stay even in Harlem.(357-350)

When Richard raises his hand to dissent from the majority during a cell meeting, he is later condemned by Buddy Nealson as a “smuggler of reaction and a “petty bourgeois degenerate” who is “corrupting the party” with his ideas. Soon this, he is officially “investigated” by a party operative named Ed Green. (350-351)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Wright’s America: 1901-1940

Richard Wright’s America (scroll down for timeline):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision: Plessey vs. Ferguson

1901 George H. White of North Carolina leaves office

1901 Booker T. Washington’s controversial White House visit

1901 Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery published

1903 W.E.B. Du Bois publishes The Souls of Black Folks

1904 Mary McLeod Bethune founds college in Daytona Beach, Florida.

1904 Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller – medicine and psychiatry

1906 Brownsville Affray

1906 Atlanta Race Riots

1907 Alain Locke receives Rhodes Scholarship

1908 Springfield (Illinois) Race Riot

1909 N.A.A.C.P formed

1910 National Urban League formed

1910 Baltimore Segregation Ordinance

1913 President Woodrow Wilson initiates segregation of federal offices

1915 “Great Migration” begins

1915 “Grandfather clause” overturned by U.S. Supreme Court in Guinn vs. United States

1916 Marcus Garvey founds UNIA

1916 Garret Morgan invents gas mask

1917 U.S. Supreme Court Decision: Buchanan vs. Warley

1917 East St. Louis Race Riot

1917 Houston Mutiny

1919 Claude Barnett and the Associated Negro Press

1919 Red Summer riots

1919 Oscar Mischeaux releases “The Homesteader”

1919 Ku Klux Klan revival in Stone Mountain, Georgia + Lynchings throughout the South

1920 Harlem Renaissance begins

1921 New York Art Exhibition featuring works of: Henry Ossawa Tanner & Meta-Vaux Warrick Fuller

1921 Tulsa Race Riot

1923 Rosewood Massacre in Florida

1923 Ossian Sweet Trial – (with Clarence Darrow as defense counsel)

1928 Oscar DePriest elected to congress from Chicago

1931 Walter White named Executive Secretary of N.A.A.C.P

1931 Scottsboro Boys Trial (round one)

1935 Mary McLeod Bethune founds National Council of Negro Women

1935 U.S. Supreme Court decision: Norris vs. Alabama

1935 U.S. Supreme Court decision: Murray vs. Pearson

1936 Jesse Owens at Berlin Olympics

1937 Joe Louis wins heavyweight championship