The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina



KEY

English 215

Exam 4 – Spring 2009

Part 1. Multiple Choice. Please use CAPITAL letters. 1 point each.

1. Which of the following is true of “The Fall of the House of Usher?”

a. Roderick was a victim of paralysis and was bedridden most of his life.

b. Madeline was pretending to be dead so that she could come back to kill her brother and inherit the estate.

c. As his sister becomes more physically ill, Roderick becomes increasingly ill emotionally and mentally.

d. None of the above

e. All of the above

2. The family motto referred to in "The Cask of Amontillado" is

A) Nemo me impune lacessit (“No one insults me with impunity”)

B) Ancilium numquam deficiens (“Without which there is nothing”)

C) Veritas et Integras (“Truth and Integrity”)

D) De gustibus non est disputandum (“There is no accounting for taste”)

E) None of the above

3. “The Raven" appeared in:

A) 1845

B) 1849

C) 1745

D) it did not appear until after Poe's death, in 1903.

4. An image of a foot crushing a “serpent rampant” whose fangs are imbedded in the heal appears in:

A) “Young Goodman Brown”

B) “The Fall of the House of Usher”

C) “The Raven”

D) “The Cask of Amontillado”

E) None of the above

5. The basic facts of “The Fall of the House of Usher” include all of the following with one exception. Which of these statements is in error?

a. The narrator has been invited to visit Roderick Usher, an old friend.

b. Roderick has a sister who is older than him by thirteen years. .

c. Roderick and his sister are the only surviving members of an ancient family.

d. The sister is buried while still alive.

6. Identify which one of the following texts appears within the narrative of “The Fall of the House of Usher”

A) “The Inkling”

B) “The Monk”

C) “The Domain of Arnheim”

D) “The Spectacles”

E) None of the above

7. Freemasonry as a social movement is used symbolically within what text?

a. “The Minister’s Black Veil”

b. “The Cask of Amontillado”

c. “The Raven”

d. “Young Goodman Brown”

e. All of the above

8. Poe was born in:

a. Boston

b. Richmond

c. Philadelphia

d. New York

e. None of the above

9. Montresor appears as a character in:

a. “The Minister’s Black Veil”

b. “Young Goodman Brown”

c. “The Fall of the House of Usher”

d. “The Cask of Amontillado”

e. None of the above

10. Which definition best fits the word “doppelganger?”

a. The objectification of emotion on nature

b. The internalization of nature to depict character

c. The alter-ego or unconscious Self

d. The initiation archetype

e. None of the above

11. Which character is afflicted by “acute bodily illness” and “a pitiable mental idiosyncrasy?

a. Madeleine Usher

b. Brown

c. Rip Van Winkle

d. Roderick Usher

e. None of the above

12. Which statement best describes “The Fall of the House of Usher?”

a. It represents Poe’s theory of literary unity as well as his views of the organic unity of the Self

b. It follows the Gothic tradition but also enhances its effects

c. It combines the tradition of the bildungsroman with the strategies of the pathetic fallacy

d. It is a version of the Gothic organized around the unifying archetype of the villanelle.

e. Both (A) and (B)

f. Both (C) and (D)

13. Poe’s mother earned her living as:

a. A seamstress

b. An opera singer

c. A watercolorist

d. An actress

e. None of the above

14. “Minute fungi overspread[ing] the whole exterior” and “a barely perceptible fissure . . . in a zigzag direction” is a description of:

a. The house of Usher

b. The Auld plantation

c. The windows outside the speaker’s chamber in “The Raven”

d. The house in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

e. None of the above

15. What “great, immovable” object is nailed down to the floor in “The Yellow Wallpaper?”

A) A bed

B) A chest of drawers

C) A desk

D) A child’s hobby-horse

E) None of the above

16. Douglass initially learned to read

A) under the tutelage of his mistress, Sophia Auld

B) under the tutelage of Mr. Plummer

C) under the tutelage of Hugh Auld

(D) with the help of a coworker in the Baltimore shipyards

(E) None of the above

17. Frederick Douglass was also the author of:

A) “Resistance to Civil Government””

B) “Incidents in the Life of a Slave”

C) “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

D) All of the above

18. Edward Covey was

A) A “Negro-Breaker”

B) Douglass’s master

C) Douglass’s birth father

D) Douglass’s fellow slave

E) None of the above

19. Douglass’s father was:

a. unknown, but possibly Aaron Anthony, the owner of the plantation

b. unknown, but probably a freed slave

c. Thomas Auld

d. William Lloyd Garrison

e. none of the above

20. Which statement is true of Gilman?

a. she edited a magazine, was treated for depression, and was married twice.

b. she wrote only one novel, she edited a magazine, and never married.

c. she had an affair with her physician, had an abortion, was treated for depression, and committed suicide.

d. she wrote only one novel, wrote two plays, edited a magazine, and never married.

e. no statements are true.

***

Part 2. Identification. 3 points each. Write your answers on the sheet provided. Identify (a) the text; (b) who is speaking about what (the context) and (c) write at least two sentences describing the symbolic or thematic significance of the quote to the work as a whole.

21. Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen ; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones.

This is the narrator speaking in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The narrator comments on the dilapidated house, which is a metaphor for the Usher family (“house” in the sense of family line). The “perfect adaptation of parts” refers to the symmetry that is still intact but about to fall, as well as to the symmetrical structure of the narrative itself.

22. The most beautiful place! It is quite alone standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people.

        There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden--large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.

        There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.

This is the narrator speaking of the house in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Much like Poe’s “Usher,” this story too uses the house as a metaphor for the body. The reference to broken greenhouses symbolizes how the character cannot grow in a repressed environment such as this.

23. It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him, that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.

Montresor speaking of Fortunado in Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.” Fortunado, ironically unfortunate, is dressed as a jester in keeping with carnival season. Carnival may be the period before Lent. The story is about indulging the senses – the desire for revenge, for tasting great wine. Thus his dress is appropriate to the setting.

24. Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--

                     Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

In Poe’s “The Raven,” the bust of Pallas signifies wisdom. Ironically, the speaker is wise/ intelligent, but not when it comes to his inability to move past his grief for the lost Lenore.

25. Our books - the books which, for years, had formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalid - were, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of Gresset ; the Belphegor of Machiavelli ; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg ; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg ; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indaginé,

These are the titles of the books in Roderick Usher’s study. Some are real; others Poe made up. They all conjure images of the occult and black magic and show how the environment has influenced Usher’s imagination and bodily state.

26.  I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

Montresor speaking in Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado.” The narrator hints at some unresolved feud between the two families. We do not know what the “wrong” is, only that he seeks to right it. Poe was preoccupied with the revenge theme late in his career, when this story appeared.

27. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.

        It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.

The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” speaking of how the wallpaper irritates her. She is most distressed at its lack of artistic symmetry, which implies how important art is to her. The wallpaper is even personified as “plunging” and “destroy[ing]” itself – as the narrator is in danger of doing, too.

28. I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design.

The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” when she discovers (or imagines) that she sees a woman behind the barred pattern of the paper struggling to break free – perhaps a reflection of herself?

29. Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore--

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--

                     Nameless here for evermore.

In Poe’s “The Raven,” the speaker referring to December suggests a time both of endings and beginnings, or of change. (Poe’s mother died in December, leading some biographers to speculate that the poem allegorizes Poe’s own attempts to reclaim his mother from death.) The reference to books also conjures the Faust archetype, since presumably the books would provide magic cures for the speaker’s depression.

30. The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning ; but I had called it a favorite of [his] more in sad jest than in earnest ; for, in truth, there is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend

Here the narrator is reading to Roderick Usher on the night that Madeleine breaks free of her premature entombment and comes to claim Roderick (her alter ego) in death. The story the narrator reads almost precisely mirrors the action of the main narrative he’s a character in, thus creating a story within a story, as well as symmetry or unity within the overall tale itself.

***

Part Three. Essay. 50 points. Write a full, well developed essay of at least 400 words on one topic below. Be specific and be detailed.

(a) Analyze how “The Fall of the House of Usher” is “signature Poe” – that is, a trademark Poe text that encapsulates nearly all of his recurring themes and techniques.

(b) Analyze the two main patterns of imagery (animals and transport) in Douglass’s Narrative and explain how they are used.

(c) Analyze how “The Yellow Wallpaper” might be interpreted as an allegory of the dilemma of the woman writer in nineteenth-century America.

Extra Credit. 1 pt each

EC 1. What was the name of Douglass’s fiancee? Anna Murray

EC 2. What was the name of Gilman’s physician? S. Weir Mitchell

EC 3. What Poe story is set on Sullivan’s Island? “The Gold Bug”

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