Literary Term Mini Test

1. ...laughed again as he had laughed over his father's taste of brandy.

Dr. MacPhail looked at him for a moment, then turned his attention once more to the straps.

"When you laugh like that," he remarked in a tone of scientific detachment, "your face becomes curiously ugly."

Taken aback, Will tried to cover his embarrassment with a piece of facetiousness. "It's always ugly," he said.

"On the contrary, in a Baudelairean sort of way it's rather beautiful. Except when you choose to make noises like a hyena. Why do you make those noises" Island by Aldous Huxley

The passage has an example of _________________.

2. It's as familiar as an old face in an old photograph as tho I'm gone a million years from all that sun shaded brush on rocks and that heartless blue of the sea washing white on yellow sand...

Big Sur by Jack Kerouac

This passage has an example of a _______________.

3. "And now she is dead. My God! my God! Harry, what shall I do? You don't know the danger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight. She would have done that for me. She had no right to kill herself. It was selfish of her."

"My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, "If you had married this guy you would have been wretched. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Lord Henry serves as a _________ to Dorian Gray, the main character of the novel.

4. Lying there in bed, I tried to think back when I first noticed it. I think it was once when we were still living in the village on the Columbia. It was summer...

...and I'm about ten years old and I'm out in front of the shake sprinkling salt on salmon for the racks behind the house.. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The narrator begins to tell a story, it is a _________________.

5. He leaned close to him and touched his forehead with his lips. As he did this, something wonderful happened to him. While he was still dwelling on Siddhartha's strange words, while he strove in vain to dispel the conception of time, to imagine Nirvana and Sansara as one, while even a certain contempt for his friend's words conflicted with a tremendous love and esteem for him, this happened to him.

He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha. Instead he saw other faces, many faces, a long serious a continuous stream of faces- Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

The character is having a/an ____________.

Ambiguity

Ambiguity: of words or phrases is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision contained or available in the information.

-from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguity

In other words, ambiguity is something that is up for interpretation because the intention is not clear. This should be avoided because it leaves the reader confused on the meaning. Usually when ambiguous language is used, there is only one intentional meaning to be expressed. They did not realize the other possible meaning.

Some examples are:

Indian folk lore researcher..

is it [Indian] folk lore researcher or [Indian folk lore] researcher

The short man and woman stood next to each other..

is it the short man and short woman or only short man

However, ambiguity can also be a useful tool for humor as a play on words.

Some examples are:

"Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" by Crystal Gayle

Blue can mean the feeling of sadness or literally mean her brown eyes changed to the color blue

"Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I’ll never know" a joke by Groucho Marx

The 1st sentence, readers would conclude he shot the elephant while wearing pajamas. The 2nd line is the joke.

Motif

A motif is a reoccurring element that helps develop the theme and mood in a story. Usually the motif has a symbolic significance to a bigger idea. Motifs can be created by objects, images, words, phrases, literary devices, sounds, and actions. The difference between a theme and a motif is that a theme is more of an overall message or idea of a story, while a motif is a element that is repeated for emphasis for a larger meaning.

An example of a motif is the 'beast' in the Lord of the Flies. The' beast' reoccurs throughout the book as obscure objects seen by the children and motivation to move the plot along. It symbolizes the savage behavior that results from their fearful imagination.

Another motif example would be the repeated phrase in Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut: "So it goes"

Motifs are used in music and films. A motif for the movie 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' is the theme song that repeats throughout the movie to illustrate a certain mood. It is played when the characters have a sense of a new beginning.

Summer Reading

1. Out of the three books, I enjoyed Brave New World by Aldous Huxley the most. The dystopian society functioned as both a mirror and critic of society. However, unlike 1984 which depicts more of a communist country, Huxley demonstrated how developed countries that can enjoy leisure time may someday forget about who they are because they are too absorbed in pleasure. The character John who was born outside of the World State is educated by Shakespeare and explores his consciousness with the plant peyote, which is the custom of the 'savages'. When he is brought to the World State he cannot live in a world of just comfort without poetry, danger, freedom, goodness, and sin. All these things are thought provoking and give the human choices to make. The theme, message, controversial content, and style of this book all intrigues me and is one of my favorites for sure.

2. I least enjoyed 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' because it wasn't very thought provoking. It followed a story about a woman looking for love. I got that she was happiest with Tea Cake even if they were poor and had a lot of unfortunate events happen, but after finishing I didn't see the point of reading it really for an English class. The style of writing also bugged me because it was hard to read the Southern African American accent on paper. This is the kind of book that I would prefer to watch as a movie because the message doesn't need to be conveyed through text.

3. If I were to write an essay about 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus which I wouldn't mind at all because I also enjoyed this book very much I would focus on the theme of absurdism. The main character (forgot his name) sees life just as a list of events, none which are very meaningful to him. He shows this in his simple direct narration. When he shoots the Arab and faces the justice system, all his meaningless events are illuminated and analyzed. Suddenly, every thoughtless action he has made determines whether he lives or not. I think it is important, because Camus is provoking the reader to think about these matters about life and meaning.