Literary Information Flashcards
Barn Burning
Key concepts Characters Plot Literary Time Period Genre
Key concepts: inescapably of the past
Characters: Major DeSpain (owns the fancy house), Sardie Snopes, Abnore Snopes
Plot: Family gets accusted of burning a barn so they have to leave the city, works under DeSpain and more chaos, some kind of commotion occurs
Sardie is confused between loyalty to which father figure (real or DeSpain)
Literary Time Period:
Genre: Modernism
The Great Gatsby
Key concepts Characters Plot Literary Time Period Genre Symbols
Key concepts: conspicuous consumption, nostalgia, decline of American Dream, wealth,
Characters: Nick Caraway, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby, George and Myrtle Wilson, Jordan Baker,
Plot: too long….
Literary Time Period: Roaring 20’s
Genre: Modernism
Symbols: green light at the end of dock (hope, money, nostalgia), eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleburg (eyes of God, since its an ad - God is replaced by consumerism), Valley of Ashes (represents moral and social decay from the pursuit of wealth)
American Indian Stories
**Mostly The Trial Path
Key concepts Characters Plot Literary Time Period Genre
Key concepts: alienation, identity, tradition, political rights and injustice, education, tribalography and survivance, justice, nostalgia
Characters: grandmother and two “brothers” - “killer” and other one who was killed
Plot: an elderly grandmother tells how one of her two lovers killed his
rival and had to stand trial, Indian-style. The trial involved a feat of pony riding; if the killer succeeded, he would be allowed to live.
When the young man did succeed, he was adopted by the family of his rival as their new son, as the tradition of Indian justice
prescribes.
Literary Time Period:
Genre:
Wieland
Key concepts Characters Plot Literary Time Period Genre
Key concepts: grotesque, epistemology, feme covert, uncertainty
Focus on individual over society, focus on nature over city, focus on impressions not objective, focus on goodness of man
Characters: Catherine, Clara, Pliel, Theodore Wieland (religious and spiritual), Wieland Sr. (spontaneous combustion), Carwin the Biloquist (mischievous, poor motives, questioned by Wieland)
Plot: too long
Literary Time Period: Enlightenment
Genre: Gothic, but introducing Romanticism
Glass Mountain
Key concepts Characters Plot Literary Time Period Genre
Key concepts: intertextuality, metatexuality, absurdity, symbolism, identity
Characters: princess, eagle, friends
Plot: quest to climb the glass mountain
Literary Time Period: ??
Genre: Post-Modernism
Harrison Bergeron
Key concepts Characters Plot Literary Time Period Genre
Key concepts: distopia, equality (what it means and how we achieve it), individuality, government control (society vs. individual), media (happens in front of their TV- how is this shaping society), communism-democracy binary (neither are perfect)
Characters: Harrison, George and Hazel
Plot: criticizes communism - Glampers enforces handicaps in order to make everyone equal. George and Hazel watch TV and notice their son rebelling the system, but he ends up dead and they don’t remember what happened due to their handicaps
Literary Time Period: Cold War, 2nd Red Scare (anticommunism)
Genre: post-modernism
Yonnondio
Key concepts Characters Plot Literary Time Period Genre
Key concepts: struggle, solidarity, intersectionality (gender identity)
Characters: Mazie, Jim and Anna
Plot:Yonnondio follows the heartbreaking path of the Holbrook family in the late 1920s and the Great Depression as they move from the coal mines of Wyoming to a tenant farm in western Nebraska, ending up finally on the kill floors of the slaughterhouses and in the wretched neighborhoods of the poor in Omaha, Nebraska.
Literary Time Period: right before the Great Depression, Roaring 20’s
Genre: Modernism, Proletarian
Speech Sounds
Key concepts Characters Plot Literary Time Period Genre
Key concepts: enstrangement, distopia, individual, human, communication, isolation
Characters: Rye, Obsidian, two kids at the end
Plot: World where an epidemic occurred and people lost capability to speak so communication is altered and people become hostile. Valerie meets Obsidian, they hook up and are going to get together, but Obsidian dies defending justice in a society where there is no law.
Literary Time Period: ??
Genre: Post-Modernism
