In class Essay

    Throughout the novel The Poisonwood Bible, the main character Mr. Price experiences a huge cultural change.  After being born and raised in a wealthy American suburbs, him and his family's move to Africa in order to spread their beliefs and end up learning more about themselves along the way.  These effects that the change in surroundings play on Mr Price and his family help to portray the author's theme of figuring out your beliefs through experiences over tradition. 

    Mr. Price experiences an awakening in Africa when he discovers many harsh aspects of the world he had been unaware of in his life in America.  These discoveries helped to develop his role in uncovering the theme throughout the novel.  Mr. Price being a devout christian father was always family oriented and loving.  The experiences he encounters in Africa affect him and his family much differently.  Mr. Price remains strict on his morals and ideas and excepting of anything else.  Mr. price begins to push away from not only those villagers but his family.  Mr. Price also begins to develop more anger and this makes him less and less appealing to his own family.  Ironically, Mr. Price's mission to spread Christianity in Africa ended up with his own family leaving him. 

   The change in culture experienced by the family in The Poisonwood Bible played a large impact in helping to reveal a theme of the novel.  Experiencing new ways of life and beliefs can change a person's own if they are accepting to question their own.  The beliefs of some change due to these experiences while others sometimes stay constant in the things they believe and choices to be accepting of anything else distant them from many others with opposing views.

1999 Essay question 3

Throughout Shakespear's play Macbeth, the main character, Macbeth, experiences much internal conflict.  His mind is pulled in two conflicting directions.  Macbeth wants power but at what cost.  He begins to contemplate and then decide on the murdering of those who control the power he is destined to have.  By shakespear using these internal conflicts of Macbeth he helps to reveal some of his themes in the novel such as the power struggle and how power affects a person.  Macbeth was pushed by his wife to quicken his line to ultimate power by killing which left him with feeligs of guilt and remorse but still that want for power grew stronger.  The internal conflict that Macbeth faces also is well used by Shakespear to convey the theme of pursuation and influence others have on you.

1999 Essay

In the passage from  Cornmac McCarthy's novel The Crossing, McCarthy used many techniques in order to convey the impact of the dramatic experience the main character experiences.  McCarthy used elements such as metaphors and personification in order to give the descriptions of the experience more life and more impact to the reader.  He also used pathos in order to allow the reader to feel a little for the main character in his loss.  McCarthy also used a lot of imagery in order to make the reader most easily picture this dramatic experience.

Poetry Essay Prompt #2 (2007)

In Philip Larkin’s poem “Here”, the poet takes us on a journey, using many literary elements to travel from the busy city to the quiet rural land “beyond a beach of shapes and shingle.”  The poem is itself a paradox in that the places in the poem are described with vivid imagery and detail, but without judgment as to favor, and the “here” ends up somewhere else that is “out of reach”.

The poem contains four stanzas, each containing eight lines, with an alternating rhyming scheme where mostly every other line rhymes, but occasional adjacent lines rhyme, giving the poem both structure and informality.  The structure and informality is consistent with the mostly nonjudgmental nature of the poet’s descriptions.

The first stanza contains description of moving with the word “swerving” used a couple of times, implying an element of both surprise and urgency to get past the industry and traffic and through the fields that aren’t well enough kept to be meadows.  The journey takes a final “swerve” past the people to get to a quieter landscape of “skies and scarecrows, haystacks” and hares”.  The poet uses this alliteration to add an element of contrast, highlighting the change in the sounds of the landscape he is describing.  

The next stanza gives additional description and imagery of the rural to urban transition.  In this stanza, the poet does judge the urban life a little unfavorable as he uses words like “crowded”, “dead” and “stealing” to describe the activity of the people getting to their “desires” to buy “cheap suits” and other kitchen and household appliances. 

The third stanza gives more physical description of the city to include “the slave museum”, “tattoo-shops”, and “consulates”.  As we pass out of the city the “loneliness clarifies” and we get to the “here” that the poet obviously prefers. 

The final stanza uses paradox like “hidden weeds flower” to give the idea that beauty can be hidden in what someone might consider a weed implying that one’s perspective is important in the discovery of significance in the things around you.  The possibilities of the undeveloped landscape give it an awe inspiring quality that the developed city has lost. The “unfenced existence” is liberating.  The poet uses the contrast of shadows in the first stanza to the sun in the last stanza to demonstrate his preference for the rural liberating “here”.

Peotry Essay Prompt #1

The two poems “To Helen” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Helen” by H.D. demonstrate the opposite esteem for the subject Helen.  The Helen of Poe’s poem is described with high regard as a very beautiful and inviting woman, whereas, in stark contrast, the Helen of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) poem would be beautiful and inviting only if she were dead.

Poe’s poem is written in three stanzas of five lines that have definite rhyming patterns where two of the three lines rhyme and then the other three rhymes.  The first stanza has the pattern a/b/a/b/b.  Poe uses a simile to compare his Helen’s beauty to that of Helen of Troy, who was considered one of the world’s most beautiful women. Her abduction by Paris caused the Trojan War.  The reference to the “Nicean barks” is the war ships sent to retrieve her and the “weary, wayworn wanderer” is likely Odysseus who voyages took over ten years during his return from the Trojan War. The classical references are used to capture the timelessness of Helen’s great beauty.  Poe describes Helen’s hair as “hyacinth” or reddish-golden with the allure of a graceful “Naiad” or nymph.  She is so inviting that she welcomes him home with “the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome”.  In the final stanza, Poe’s Helen is immortalized, transcending time like a statue with an agate lamp symbolizing the connection to the Psyche, or soul.  The poem is a tribute to a beautiful woman, held in high regard.

On the contrary, the Helen of H.D.’s poem is hated by all of Greece.  In this three stanza poem, a couple of the lines in each stanza rhyme and the stanza length increases by a line as the poem progresses. This disregard to form highlights the disregard the author has for the Helen of the poem. Like Poe, Doolittle describes Helen’s appearance, and even though she has qualities of beauty like white skin and olive eyes, she is too hated to be considered beautiful.  As the poem progresses, Helen is blamed for past tragedies and the description of her appearance changes to the appearance of a pale unmoving form, resembling death.  There is no regard or sympathy for the Helen who was so widely accepted as a symbol of beauty and love.  The Helen of this poem has been blamed for all the Greek casualties of the Trojan War. 

The portrayals of Helen in these two poems are examples of two extreme interpretations of the physical appearance and symbolism of a historic figure.

Fahrenheit 451 Multiple Choice Questions

1. “It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You’d find life under the glass,

streaming past in infinite profusion.” (pg. 83)

What is the theme of this book?

A. Books make up life.

*B. Look deep down in a book to get the true meaning.

C. Put a book under a microscope to find its features.

D. There is an infinite amount of aspects of a book.

2. When the firemen tell people that if you are caught with a book, your house will be burned

down, what type of propaganda is this?

A. Repetition

B. Loaded Words

*C. Appeal to our basic Needs and Desires

D. Loaded imagery

3. When the people are not allowed to read books. It shows that they are…

*A. not knowledgeable (stupid)

B. believing in nothing

C. lazy

D. easily manipulated

4. “The Boulevard was as clean as the surface of an arena.” What literary device was

used in this quote?

A. Metaphor 

B. Personification   

C. Simile 

D. Foreshadowing

5. “Montag approached from the rear, creeping through a thick night.” What

character trait was shown in this quote about Montag? 

A. Sneakiness

B. Bravery   

C. Incompetence 

D. Intelligence 

 

6. “When I leave, burn the spread of this bed that I touched.” What common

character trait was shown in this quote about Montag? 

A. Bravery

B. Nervousness   

C. Intelligence

D. Sneakiness

7. The cities won’t do well over the next few days,” is an example of 

a- personification

b- propaganda

*c- foreshadowing 

d- metaphor

8. “I’m not worried,” said Mrs. Phelps, “I’ll let Pete do all the worrying. Not me. I’m not

worried.” The repetition in this quote gives the feeling that 

*a- Mrs. Phelps is worried

b- Mrs. Phelps is confident

c- Mrs. Phelps is happy

d- Mrs. Phelps loves Pete

9. “The real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn’t want people sitting like that,

doing nothing, rocking, talking.” shows the idea that

a- It is bad to relax

b- When people think, bad things happen

*c- Thinking breeds change

d- The government is evil

10.  “That’s the good part of dying, when you’ve got nothing to lose, you run any risk you

want,” shows the theme that

a- Everybody needs to die at some point

*b- Doing what is right is more important than one person’s life

c- When one has nothing to lose, they should die

d- When one is going to die, they should do anything they want

11. “It’s fine work, Monday burn Millay,  Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn

‘em to ashes, then burn the ashes.” is an example of what kind of propaganda 

a- repetition

b- appealing to fear

c- loaded words

*d- slogan

12. The real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn’t want people sitting like that,

doing nothing,” is an example of the government controlling the information. What

incident in history can this be retaliated to.

a- The Boston Tea Party

*b- The Red Scare

c- The Cold War

d- WWII

13. In the quote, “But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of ashes, he got himself born all over

again,” who/what is Granger talking about?

a) The city

b) Phoenix

c) Montag

d) The Hound

14. Granger says, “And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over,” what is he comparing us to.

a) Clarisse

b) Human kind

c) Beatty

d) Phoenix

15. “He waded in and stripped in darkness to the skin, splashing his body, arms, legs, and head with raw

liquor; drank it and snuffed some up his nose,” why did Montag do this?

a) As a substitute for showering.

b) To get rid of his scent so the Hound can’t track him down.

c) To go suicide and burn himself to death.

d) To use as a disease repellant.

16. What device is used in this quote, “Leave that stuff in the blood and the blood hits the brain like a mallet,

bang. A couple of thousand times and the brain just gives up, just quits.”

a) Foreshadowing

b) Metaphor

c) Simile

d) Diction

17. In this quote, what is the characters tone’s: “Mildred kicked at a book. Books aren’t people. You

read and I look all around, but there isn’t anybody”(73)?

a. excited

b. disappointed

c. frustrated

d. decisive

answer is c.

18."Pride, dammit, and temper, and you've junked it all...", shows Montag's _________?

a. enlightment

b. self-pity

c. happiness

d. disgrace

19. The book continuously mentions something that helps find books in people’s

homes. What item are they talking about?

a. Montag’s car

b. Their fire truck

c. The Hound*

d. The city bus

20. In the quote, “So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show

the pores in the face of life,” what theme is shown?

a. Books explore detailed feelings and aspects of life

b. Books scare people

c. Pores on a face are hated and feared

d. Books who you what you really look like

ANSWER: A

Fahrenheit 451 Prose Essay Prompts

1.    Analyze Captain Beatty. Is he truly an idealogue in support of censorship or is he hiding an allegiance to freedom of expression? Use 3 specific literary elements examples from the text in your argument. 2.     Fahrenheit 451 is about burning books, why is this book then known as a Classic in English classes? What is the significance? Use 3 literary elements to help your reasoning.

3. Faber discusses three things that are missing from the Fahrenheit 451 society.  These missing things are the reasons why the people in this society don’t want or need books.  Identify and explain the three reasons Faber gives and then analyze our own society to see if we suffer from the same maladies that infect the Fahrenheit 451 society.