Key Concepts Flashcards
Absurdity
- studies human behavior under conditions that may be fantastic or realistic; absurd or seem devoid of purpose;
makes us really aware of the way we are looking at human drive or human desire to success
Example: Harrison Bergeron
people are forced to have certain handicaps; Harrison and the ballerina kiss the ceiling
Conspicuous Consumption
Consumers buy stuff (Rolls Royce, tabloids, trashy novels/magazines) to show off wealth to maintain class and status, not because of need Leads to a society of wastefulness
Ex: The Great Gatsby
Gatsby, his parties, his pile of shirts, Buchanan’s
Diaspora
Movement of people from their homeland (disperse); connections to ancestral homeland and complicates the idea of home
Ex: This Blessed House
Indian and Hindu
Twinkle moves from California to Connecticut
Idea of home is huge in this story - Sajeev wants to make the home more like his homeland, but Twinkle sees home differently
Double conscioiusness
Always looking at yourself through someone else’s POV
awareness of how the dominant society sees you vs. how you see yourself
Ex: Passing
Racism, Irene doesn’t fit into either category of white or black
Dystopia
Strive for utopia, perfection
Flaw in the system, usually related to oppression (social or political)
conformity, “puppet government”
Controlling higher power, futuristic, rebellion, paranoia, lack of relationship, surveillance
Ex: Harrison Bergeron
Epistomology
Anxiety of how we know what we know
Asks questions about how we know what we know; valid ways of knowing the world
Theory or system of knowledge
Ex: Wieland
Empiricism via Pliel - believes what he experiences
Rationalism via Clara - believes through rational reason
Enstrangement
Key feature of dystopia, alientaion
Feme Covert
A married woman - when you get married you lose all legal rights: you don’t own your own property, don’t have a public voice, everything is under the husband’s agency
Ex: Wieland
Catherine’s possessions are all under Theodore Wieland
Grotesque
Transgression of boundaries and exaggeration between real and fantasy, funny and frightening
Characters evoke empathy and disgust
Ex: Wieland
Character Wieland is grotesque
Ex: A Good Man Is Hard To Find
The Misfit is grotesque
Intersectionality
Multiple axis of identity that overlap or intersect
Combines oppression and privilege at the same time
Ex: Passing
Clare or Irene are both oppressed by gender, race, being mothers, “locked in” to marriages
Intertextuality
When there are other texts within the text, being shaped by them, and visible to readers
Ex: The Glass Mountain
Takes a part from Hamlet
Retelling an older fairy tale called The Glass Mountain
Quote from a dictionary
Situational Irony
Development in the story is the opposite of what is expected
Ex: A Good Man is Hard to Find
the grandmother receives grace through a serial killer, The Misfit
Dramatic Irony
Characters fail to see something obvious to the reader
Ex: A Good Man is Hard to Find
The grandma believes she is good, but the reader can see her flaws
Metatexuality
Fiction about fiction
Fiction that won’t let you forget you are reading fiction and even refers to itself as fiction
Ex: The Glass Mountain
The characters are aware they are characters
Tells stories about stories
The line numbers distract you from getting really into the story
Proletarian
Literature made by the working class about the working class
Major themes of solidarity and struggle
Questions or highlights problems in the American system and criticizes how the American Dream is not accessible to everyone in America
Ex: Yonnondio
