Exam: (50%) • Short answer/essay – Day of Final Exam
LIST A: I have copies of these books. You may check out a school copy from me, so you don’t have to purchase one.
1) Pride and Prejudice escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their
perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are Elizabeth Bennet is the sometimes menacing and often hilarious. perfect Austen heroine: intelligent, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest generous, sensible, and incapable of jealousy or any other major sin. A wickedly subversive parable That makes her sound like an set in a mental ward, the insufferable goody-goody, but the novel chronicles the head-on truth is she's a completely hip collision between its hell- character, who if provoked, is not raising, life-affirming hero above skewering her antagonist Randle Patrick McMurphy with a piece of her exceptionally and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse. McMurphy sharp -- but always polite -- 18th century wit. swaggers into the mental ward like a blast of fresh air I, Robot and turns the place upside In this collection, Asimov sets out down, starting a gambling the principles of robot behavior operation, smuggling in wine that we know as the Three Laws and women, and egging on the other patients to of Robotics. Here are stories of join him in open rebellion. But McMurphy's robots gone mad, mind-reading revolution against Big Nurse and everything she robots, robots with a sense of stands for quickly turns from sport to a fierce humor, robot politicians, and power struggle with shattering results. robots who secretly run the world, all told with Asimov's trademark dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction. **Note: Since this is a short 2) Uncle Tom’s Cabin story collection, on the final exam, you may be tested on ANY of the stories. Uncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil The Adventures of War South. Uncle Tom's Huckleberry Finn Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its Mark Twain's classic novel, The presentation of Tom, "a man of humanity," as the first Adventures of Huckleberry black hero in American fiction. Finn, tells the story of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an 3) The Joy Luck Club
Four mothers, four daughters, four
families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money
LIST B: I do not have copies of these books, but you may still choose one from this list. 8) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The mysterious Jay Gatsby embodies the American notion that it is possible to redefine oneself and persuade the world to accept that definition. Gatsby's youthful neighbor, Nick Carraway, fascinated with the display of enormous wealth in which Gatsby revels, finds himself swept up in the lavish lifestyle of Long Island society during the Jazz Age. Considered Fitzgerald's best work, The Great Gatsby is a mystical, timeless story of integrity and cruelty, vision and despair. 9) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Mesmerizing in its immediacy and haunting in its subtlety, Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of Janie Crawford—fair-skinned, long-haired, dreamy woman—who comes of age expecting better treatment than what she gets from her three husbands and community. Then she meets Tea Cake, a younger man who captivates Janie's heart and spirit, and offers her the chance to relish life without being one man's mule or another man's adornment. 10) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights remains one of literature’s most disturbing explorations into the dark side of romantic passion. Heathcliff and Cathy believe they’re destined to love each other forever, but when cruelty and snobbery separate them, their untamed emotions literally consume them. 11) The Awakening by Kate Chopin Set in New Orleans and the Southern Louisiana coast at the end of the nineteenth century, the plot centers around Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century South. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also one of the most important novels written by an American woman in the nineteenth century. 12) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott This classic story of the March family women and their lives in New England during the Civil War has remained enduringly popular since its publication in 1868. Poor, argumentative, loving, and optimistic, the March sisters struggle to supplement their family's meager income and realize their own dreams. This highly autobiographical novel shows us women who are strong-minded and independent in their determination to control their own destiny. 4) Fallen Angels
Fallen Angels is the story of Perry, a
Harlem teenager who volunteers for the service when his dream of attending college falls through. Sent to the front lines, Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren't the only hardships. As Perry struggles to find virtue in himself and his comrades, he questions why some troops are given the most dangerous assignments, and why the U.S. is there at all.
