A narrow fellow in the grass questions and answers pdf

Final Exam -- English 241 – Dr. McCrimmon – Fall 2015 Each of the six close readings in Part One is worth 10 points (for a total of 60), and the Part Two essay question that follows these passages is worth 40 points, for a grand total of 100 points. I recommend printing out this exam and taking notes on it before launching into your responses. Increase the font size or double-space before printing, if you wish. I need to see only your responses, which can be sent by email to mmccrimmon@reynolds.edu no later than Monday, December 14th, at midnight. Part One: Close Reading (60 pts.) Note: Don’t be thrown by the length of these instructions. I’m just trying to give you some good strategies for close reading. You might use some of these for your major essay draft, in fact. I would prefer that you do your work on this exam independently. You should not have to use outside, secondary sources on this exam, although dictionaries such as the OED online (available as a database through our library) may help you to clarify certain word usages. My expectation is that you will generally be able to draw from the experience you have had thus far as a reader and writer in the course. Perhaps to gain some context for each passage, you may want to try to find its original placement on course Salon. You could also return and refer to previous postings and annotations of your own and others (properly cited as “(Johnson RR3)”, “(Jones GR4)”), or (“Jackson Annotation”), though that is by no means a requirement. You are being asked to perform a “close reading” of each passage below. First, try to keep the following analytical moves in mind as you take notes on each passage:

 suspend judgment (understand before you judge);

 define significant parts and how they’re related;

 look for patterns of repetition and contrast and anomaly;

 make the implicit explicit (convert to direct statement meanings that are suggested indirectly);

 keep reformulating questions and explanations. (Rosenwasser and Stephen, Writing Analytically, p. 41)

Consider another set of general questions as you continue to think about each passage closely:

 The question of evidence, or "How do we know what we know?"

 The question of viewpoint in all its multiplicity, or "Who's speaking?"

 The search for connection and patterns, or "What causes what?"

 Supposition, or "How might things have been different?"

 Why any of it matters, or "Who cares?" (Debbie Meier, “Habits of Mind”) Return to the Reader’s Toolkit on the course wiki for any other techniques (besides the two above) that seem appropriate to the task of close reading of a short to mid-length passage.

mailto:mmccrimmon@reynolds.edu
After you have thoroughly annotated these passages to your satisfaction, convert your notes into a response in sentences and paragraphs. Address both form (style, structure, genre, voice, attitude toward audience and subject, etc.) and content (what's actually being said; how the substance of the passage relates and fits into the text as a whole; also how the content of the passage and text fits into the larger historical and cultural context). Don’t confuse the close reading protocols above with a recipe or a simple set of questions to answer. There is no perfect answer; your response will be assessed based on the extent to which you are able to sustain an interesting analysis of these passages in your own voice. The more analytical work you do on each passage, the better each answer will be.

1. Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (Collection 7)

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

2. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” (Collection 8)

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

3. Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” (Collection 9)

True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story. It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded - with what caution - with what foresight - with what dissimulation I went to work!

4. Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Birth-mark” (Collection 10) "Aylmer," resumed Georgiana, solemnly, "I know not what may be the cost to both of us, to rid me of this fatal birth-mark. Perhaps its removal may cause cureless deformity. Or, it may be, the stain goes as deep as life itself. Again, do we know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little Hand, which was laid upon me before I came into the world?" "Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject," hastily interrupted Aylmer--"I am convinced of the perfect practicability of its removal." "If there be the remotest possibility of it," continued Georgiana, "let the attempt be made, at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life--while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust--life is a burthen which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful Hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep science! All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great wonders! Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with the tips of two small fingers! Is this beyond your power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?"

5. Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” (Collection 11) A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer, designedly dropt, Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say, Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic; And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white; Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

6. Emily Dickinson, “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” (Collection 12) A narrow fellow in the grass Occasionally rides; You may have met him—did you not His notice sudden is, The grass divides as with a comb, A spotted shaft is seen, And then it closes at your feet, And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre, A floor too cool for corn, But when a boy and barefoot, I more than once at noon Have passed, I thought, a whip lash, Unbraiding in the sun, When stooping to secure it, It wrinkled and was gone.

Several of nature’s people I know, and they know me; I feel for them a transport Of cordiality. But never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone.

Part Two: Essay (40 pts.) Choose only one of the following three options. Option 1: As you know, a wordle provides you with a graphic illustration of the frequency with which these words appear in any text. The bigger the word, the more often it appears. Take a look at this wordle of the entire course’s readings (Collections 1-12):

Look carefully at the wordle and think about the frequency with which words appear. In the first part of your essay, explain the significance of three to five recurring words within our body of readings in a way that accounts for their frequency across the span of 250 years. Try to find an interesting connection (either a parallel comparison or a binary contrast) among the three to five words you choose to discuss. How can the three to five words you choose be clustered in ways that relate to or connote larger concepts within the course? Now, look carefully again at the wordle and think about words that are absent. In the second part of your essay, discuss at least three words you are surprised not to find among this collection of the roughly 150 top words in the course. Explain why these three “missing words” represent important concepts in the course and why they why they have a greater presence in the mind of the reader than in the text itself. In both parts of your essay, be creative with your approach and innovative in your thinking. You have been reading, reflecting, and writing about these texts all semester long—you have been persistent in your pursuit of Early American Literature. Take this exam question as an opportunity to demonstrate how you have synthesized these disparate texts.

Option 2:

Using the entire semester’s readings, conduct a colloquium (defined as “an informal meeting for the exchange of views”) among three writers (or fictional characters). To ensure a cosmic experience across time period and genre, please choose one figure from Collections 1-4, one from Collections 5-8, and one from Collections 9- 12. You may choose to serve as the moderator, or you may nominate a fourth party from among our readings or from contemporary media.

Assume that the participants have had a few months to wander about and become acclimated to 2015 America. You may determine the subject area from among any of the course themes we’ve discussed (some of the “big ideas” and “great questions” from the paper topic might be good starting points), but don’t be surprised if they tend to want to talk about current events too (or instead).

They certainly should not agree entirely about the theme(s) you present for them, nor should they be so far apart that they can’t have a civil, but interesting and engaged conversation. You are responsible for choosing writers and theme(s) in a way that leads to productive debate and dialogue, remaining faithful to each writer’s way of looking at the world. Try, at times, to quote directly from their texts, though you needn’t feel constrained to exact quotation for the whole course of your response.

Make sure to frame your colloquium with some analytical narration both before and after the main section of dialogue (or extensive stage directions if you opt for a play format), so we can get ourselves oriented beforehand and see the point of the exercise afterwards.

Option 3: You are an assistant editor at 451Publishing, a publishing house whose motto uses the immortal words of Ray Bradbury’s Professor Faber: “It’s not books you need, it’s some of the things that once were in books.” At 451Publishing, you specialize in distilling classic works of literature into a more manageable size—say 1% of their original length—while retaining the language of the original text. While many critics regard their product as abridgements (or worse!), the CEO Mr. Beatty prefers to think of them as something more akin to literary perfume, products that retain the essence of the text without the inconvenience of too many words. The newest assignment to land on your desk is to prepare an anthology of three abridged texts meant to represent early American literature from the early 1600s up to 1865. Your manager has tweeted you the following instructions: “See what you can do with this Am lit anth. Never read it myself. 120K words in the original texts--need to be whittled down to under 1K, but I know you can do it. Don’t forget—Dec. 15th midnight is abs. deadline.” Armed with this e-mail and the collections on Salon, you have two choices: to fulfill the assignment from your editor and provide an under-thousand word version of Early American Literature (good news for you that you actually took a class on it once) or use what’s known at 451 as “The Granger,” an option (or last resort) available to all editors. Rather than distill the entire 250-plus years into 1000 words or less, you can choose to “go Granger” (as they say) by writing a proposal (a manifesto really) to CEO Beatty explaining why this particular collection of literature can’t be distilled and must remain intact. Both choices are tricky. The distillation means you have to make Early American Literature understandable in under 1000 words; the “Granger” means you have to write a persuasive, rhetorically-effective corporate proposal to CEO Beatty that will compel him to publish Collections 1-12 from our Salon in their entirety (and he’s a hard sell--he won’t go for vague platitudes, he wants proof). Both have their challenges and their rewards—but remember to follow your heart (or your head) and commit to whatever path you take.