Final exam essay techniques

Question 1

Didacticism

Answer 1

How to become a writer
How to date a brown girl
Happy Endings

Question 2

Frustration of readerly expectation

Answer 2

If a story has a clear point and then just changed all of a sudden
Bullet in the brain with no expectation that the narrator will be shot
Where are you going where have you been not expecting to be kidnapped
Out of Body

Question 3

First person vs. second person narration

Answer 3

You in America
How to become a writer
How to date a brown girl

Question 4

Revelation, epiphany, “moment of grace”

Answer 4

Thesis: Often in stories the characters have to endure a story or a dilemma to reach a consensus, but at times the outcome can be a surprise to the characters. These surprises not only change the meaning of the story but redefine a moment of realization and revelation for the main character.
Brownies when they realize that the girls are actually mentally handicapped
The Swimmer at the end realizing there is no one in the house
Battle Royale with realizing there is scholarship in the briefcase

Question 5

Narration: third person objective, third person limited, third person omniscient

Answer 5

Hills like white elephants third person objective except for that one word
Thrid person limited - good people & A small good thing

Question 6

Binary oppositions/ failure of binary oppositions

Answer 6

Things are black vs white, good vs evil, a lot of stories (young goodman brown) start off with a clear binary (if he stays on the path he is good if he strays he is bad) and then it diverges

Binary stays in the swimmer - young vs old, sober vs. drunk, rich vs. poor. And the whole story stays in a binary but he is changing from one to another
Hills like white elephants
A to B new life versus old life

Question 7

Flat and round, static and dynamic characters

Answer 7

The Swimmer is a dynamic character and went through tribulations, meanwhile every other character was not
Same with the hunger artist
But in Girl, we say main character and the mom as dynamic characters

Question 8

Sympathetic characters

Answer 8

Bartleby narrator
A Very old man with enormous wings none of the characters were sympathetic and only cared about money
Good people the boy was sympathetic but not t all empathetic