Take-Home Test #4

DUE: Monday, December 1, 2008 handwritten or typed.
DO NOT COPY THE QUESTIONS!

Directions: For each question below, write a response which shows your understanding of the assigned content and your application of key concepts in the unit. We think a successful response to each question is at least ONE-THREE well-written paragraphs. Each response is worth 25 points each.


Part A: Question on “Gaston,” by William Saroyan

This short story was assigned for homework due Wednesday, November 12. You were asked to read the short story (CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY) and to answer the questions on Page 21 of the Online Study Guide (CLICK HERE FOR THE GUIDE)

1. At the beginning of the story, the father is described from his young daughter’s point of view. What does she think of him? Why does he seem like such a stranger?
2. What does the father do to change his daughter’s opinion of the insect that they find in the peach? What makes the daughter lose sympathy for the insect?
3. At the end of the story, why does the father feel “a little . . . like Gaston”?
4. What parallels can you find between the father in “Gaston” and Gregor Samsa
in The Metamorphosis?

Part B: Question on “Notes from Underground,” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Read, at least, the first six chapters. This novel was assigned for homework due Tuesday, November 18. You were asked to read the short story (CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY) and to answer the questions on Page 22 of the Online Study Guide (CLICK HERE FOR THE GUIDE)

1. What did the speaker in Notes from the Underground do for a living? Why did he leave his job? Describe where and how he lives since he left his job.
2. What does the speaker mean when he says that “to be too conscious is an illness”? What “opposite elements” seem to torment him?
3. The speaker says that he has tried but failed to become an insect and that a man of consciousness “genuinely thinks of himself as a mouse and not a man.” What do these statements suggest about the speaker’s opinion of himself? Why has he taken refuge in the “underground”?
4. What themes do Notes from the Underground and The Metamorphosis have in
common?

Part C: Question on Kafka’s Life from the Online Study Guide

What parallels do you see between Kafka’s relationship with his father and the
father-son relationship portrayed in The Metamorphosis?

Part D: Question on connecting Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” to our unit theme “Eyes Wide Shut”

One way to think of the unit theme is the ways people can sometime LOOK, but not SEE. It may be they look at their lives and the lives around them, but do not see what is truly going on. What connections can you make between Gregor Samsa’s family and the unit theme?

"Eyes Wide Shut" Unit Plans

The unit called "Eyes Wide Shut," which included Franz Kafka's novella "The Metamorphosis" will include these two final texts: "A Hunger Artist," and Plato's Allegory of the Den." Click here for a link to the short story and at the left for links to Plato:

http://records.viu.ca/~Johnstoi/kafka/hungerartist.htm

After reading "A Hunger Artist," in your notebook, copy and then answer the following questions:
1. How does the hunger artist justify or rationalize his choices?
2. What do you notice about how the public responds to the hunger artist at various times?
3. How is the hunger artist like celebrities in our culture today?
4. What connections can you make, thematically, between "The Metamorphosis" and "A Hunger Artist"?
5. What questions and comments do you have about this story?

A unit test on "Eyes Wide Shut" will be on Friday, December 5, 2008.

PLEASE USE THE COMMENT FIELD BELOW TO SHOW YOUR CLASSMATES
WHAT YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT THESE QUESTIONS - CHOOSE ONE OR TWO TO ANSWER IN A COMMENT FOR US TO READ!