Final Flashcards
“The Open Boat”
By Stephan Crane
The Open Boat by Crane speaks to the endless perils of the human condition. The men in the boat are faced with one problem after the next in their efforts to reach the shore.
Story is told from the third person perspective which is effective in conveying the story’s theme of nature’s indifference to the plight of man, possessing no consciousness that we can understand. We are conscious of all the men’s thoughts, yet nature is random in it’s aid and harm during their journey at sea.
“A Deal in Wheat”
Frank Norris
“A Deal in Wheat” by Frank Norris showcases the naturalistic literature qualities through a concise and objective writing style. The writing style enhances the overriding theme in this short story, of economic struggle against almost irresistible forces. Showing how sadly limited we are and what little control we have (naturalist)
“The Law of Life”
Jack London
In his short story “The Law of Life,” Jack London presents us with his interpretation of the complex relationship between man and nature, that is : death or the law of life. The end of the old moose and the end of old Koskoosh share important similarities. Both are separated from their kind and killed by wolves. However man is separated from nature as he is aware of his end.
“The Other Two”
Edith Wharton
The short story by Edith Wharton tells of an uncommon relationship between Mr. Waythorn, his wife and her two ex-husbands. One of the many themes that can be found in this story is feminism vs masculinity in a story of social observation. We see the progressing strength of Alice and the possessive, self-serving behavior of Waythorn as it disappears.
“Richard Cory”
Edwin Arlington Robinson
E.A. Robinson
Richest man in town, everyone wants to be like him… he goes home and kills himself… He is the wrong kind of rich. He lacks what everyone else has: A capacity to hope
Style: Iambic pentameter. An odd syllable is being stressed “calm summer knight” breaks it
Ironic; its normal night except for the suicide.
“Miniver Cheevy”
Edwin Arlington Robinson
E.A. Robinson
Miniver Cheevy is a poem written in rhymed quatrains which depicts a man who is stuck in the past because he is miserable in the present. Implicitly the poem alludes to the notion that we try to maintain a positive image in order to cope however all he does is continue to drink.
“Mr. Flood’s Party”
Edwin Arlington Robinson
E.A. Robinson
Implicitly this poem alludes to what time and change can do to somebody. Eben Flood is enduring the difficult circumstances of existence. Under the mock sentimentality, theres a sense that this guy is heroic for he continues to fight the sadness of being alone. There is beauty in the struggle.
The ebin flood of the tides
Means the passage of time
“How Annandale Went Out”
Edwin Arlington Robinson
E.A. Robinson
Stylistically, this poem is a sonnet; the 8 line segment establishes a problem or question and 6 line segment resolves the problem. The poem’s voice is not the poet but of someone overlooking an ill person on their death bed. Implicitly the poem comments on the nature of life and death. The speaker is struggling to decide if the person should die a long and painful death or end his life but know that he died peacefully and painlessly.
“Home Burial”
Robert Frost
Written informally, doesnt rhyme. Not quite free-verse but loose-iambic.
Both man and woman are suffering from the loss of a child, both have very different ways of coping with it. She misunderstands him, views him as insensitive.
The story reflects themes of Realists literature, as the poem stresses the importance of breaking free of the prison of self
“Mending Wall”
Robert Frost
Written in Blank Verse with some iambs
The narrator and the poem and his neighbor are at odds over the wall the separates their property. The narrator is ready for the wall to come down however the neighbor is not. The neighbor is viewed harshly as if his thinking is medieval.
Metaphorically, both neighbors are working to build something that will never be completed, as the boulders keep falling
“Design”
Robert Frost
Frost depicts the interaction of white flower, moth and spider. He concludes that if it were “design” that brought these three together, it must be some pretty dark design. In other words, it’s not a comforting thought to think that God went out of his way just to make sure this moth got eaten. But the “if” in the last line poses the question if there is a design behind anything at all.
“After Apple-Picking”
Robert Frost
Irregular rhyme scheme, but you don’t really notice it, because he’s using enjambment. Similar to how the subject doesn’t know whether he will sleep normally or if it will be the long sleep.
He is paralleling the farmers apple picking and the last day of harvest to
the sleep of the world in winter.
Aging; You work very hard, and accomplish every apple, everything. When you are young you have so many possibilities, and then as time goes on–he sees that he can’t do it all perfectly.
“For Once, Then, Something”
Robert Frost
Narcissistic Man looking into a well.
The speaker takes the ancient greek philosopher, Democritus’ saying literally as the subject is looking at the bottom of a well for the truth.
You look for the truth, and the truth that you find is something that you project,
Something beyond my perspective was there, and he has to keep searching. “For once then, there was something”
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Robert Frost
Explicitly, the poem is simple for a man considers staying within nature to watch the snow, but decides not to.
Each line is iambic, with four stressed syllables
Wouldn’t it just be nice to go off into the darkness and silence and not have to deal with anything. Of endless relaxation. A thought that lasts a moment for many of us.
The speaker realizes implicitly that he has to be with human beings. The horse does not see the same beauty of nature. Humans have to be with humans to share this. Nature is not where humans belong.
Repeating the last line is a matter of technique
“The Road Not Taken”
Robert Frost
Frost often wrote in a way to show us how to deal with the dark side of life
Frost is suggesting- life gives us choices, and our decisions makes life better or worse or for both for us, we just acknowledge where we’re at.
The sigh is not at contentment or regret, its just at the large weight of the decisions me make.
“Birches”
Robert Frost
Written in loose iambics
The act of swinging on birches is presented as a way to escape the hard rationality or “Truth” of the adult world, if only for a moment. As the boy climbs up the tree, he is climbing toward “heaven” and a place where his imagination can be free. We must escape from reality every once and awhile, but we always come back to it.
You have to be as tough as life
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
T.S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock serves as a prototype for the modern, self-doubting, anti-heroic, limited character. Eliot writes as if the reader was within
Prufrock’s head. As we’re in his mind, there are rapid changes of moods and styles that reflect it. Prufrock is a troubled mind who doesn’t feel up to standard, as how narcotically debates approaching a female at a social event, however implicitly fears intimacy.
There is a MOTIF OF STERILITY AND OF THE SEA within the poem.
The sea, a mode of escape, a manifestation of a death-wish ; a very troubled mind that doesn’t feel up to standard
“Anecdote of the Jar”
Wallace Stevens
Anecdote of the Jar is a short poem that presents the question of superiority between art and nature. Is nature superior to human creations or does human creatively surpass it in some? This implicit connection is made mainly by the fact that the jar is man-made and nature’s interaction with the jar it’s left upon the hill.
“A High-Toned Old Christian Woman”
Wallace Stevens
In this poem Steven makes a point that religion and poetry are fictive constructs of the mind. For some, supreme fiction erases our “bawdiness,” however the narrator choose to visualize heaven as a nightclub, not a cathedral.
He is not declaring what is true, there’s no heaven. But mine’s more fun.
“The Emperor of Ice Cream”
Wallace Stevens
In “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” Wallace Stevens presents the death of a women and the attending of a wake. The poem’s implicit meaning is up for interpretation. For perceptions of the world differ from person to person. Stevens therefore implicitly comments that life is dull if we dont impose our fictions onto it. Dull or dreary as a dead prostitute.
“Sunday Morning”
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens presents contrasting arguments between the narrator and his woman subject within the poem “Sunday Morning.” While the woman searches for beauty is that lasts forever, the poet counters with the notion that “death is the mother of beauty,” that the fact of death exists enhances beauty. By the end of the poem, the woman determines that a devotion to earthly pleasures will provide her with bliss. This reflects a theme of Steven’s work that the best we can do is to create useful fictions for the world to be enjoyed.
“In Another Country”
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway uses a very paratactic writing style within “In Another Country” listing descriptions, all with equal weight. These paratactic descriptions have a way of masking the insecurities and pressures characters face in the story. This idea goes along with a central theme of Hemingway’s writing: “grace under pressure.”
“Hills Like White Elephants”
Ernest Hemingway
A short story where a man and women drink and talk prior to boarding a train at the station. There is a lot of tension in their conversation yet the exact reason why remains ominous. The women’s operation remains ominous as a result of Hemingway’s paratactic writing style that promotes us to infer for ourselves what is happening. This causes the readers inferences to focus on how people deal with the pressure of an unwanted pregnancy, as grace under pressure is a central theme to most of his writing.
“A Rose for Emily”
William Faulkner
A grotesque story of a woman who poisoned a man because he is not going to marry her. She kills him and keeps the body. The woman, Emily, isn’t an allegory to the south, but she is a product of her society; The old south. A society that didn’t yield to anything and would not give up.
“Winter Dreams”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Winter Dreams” tells the romance story of Dexter and Judy. Judy is very beautiful in the eyes of Dexter and all his sense of beauty in the world is tied to her. As her beauty is said to have faded, so has dexter’s capacity to dream. A central theme within Fitzgerald’s story is that change is constant and inevitable as Dexter holds on to the past when he and Judy could be together. Fitzgerald had a tendency to admire romantic dreamers in his work despite knowing that life often doesn’t allow them to come true.
“A and P”
John Updike
A and P chronicles the coming of age story of Sammy as he leaves his job at the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. The three girls that enter the store represent rebellion against conformity, as they are shoeless and go against the tide of the store. In Sammy’s efforts to impress the girls, he quits and chooses beauty over labels and order.
