English Short Story Unit Quiz

The Danger of the Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

explains how stereotypes arise when we only hear one narrative about a person, place, or culture; warns that single stories are incomplete and dehumanizing, and urges us to seek multiple perspectives to see people fully and truthfully

How does the opening line set up Adichie’s talk?

She was an early reader and would only read British books because that was the only thing she had access to. When she began to write, she would only write about what she knew, British stories, which shows how a single story erased her culture

Why does Adichie say we are “impressionable” and “vulnerable” in the face of a story?

stories shape how we see the world, how we view the world, and how we treat people. We are especially vulnerable when we hear stories as children

According to Adichie, what may have contributed to her roommate’s single story of Africa?

stereotypical western media and literature that often would represent Africa as a place full of catastrophe, poverty, and zero education

Why might Adichie include her trip to Guadalajara in this talk? What is her message?

she is also a victim of falling for a single story. She used to believe that Mexicans were only poor immigrants because of what she was told and what she heard. Her message is that anyone can fall into single-story thinking, including herself

How does one create a single story?

by telling one version, one narrative, one culture, on repeat, and shunning out any other views or ignoring others’ perspectives

According to Adichie, how does power play a role in the single story?

decides whose stories are told, whose stories are spread, whose stories are believed; can make one version everyone's version

While single stories can be dangerous, why does Adichie say that stories “can also be used to empower, and to humanize”?

Stories can connect people and cultures together, repair broken dignity, and show that people are more than their stereotypes.

Girl by Jamaica Kincaid

a prose poem in which a mother provides a stream of instructions to her daughter about how to behave, work, and avoid shame, revealing strict gender expectations and social pressures that shape her identity

What do we know about Jamaica Kincaid?

a Antiguan - American author who focuses her work on gender roles, colonization, and identity. Her writing style is lyrical and autobiographical style

prose

Normal/ordinary like essays and novels, no line breaks

poetry

Uses line breaks, uses figurative language, and symbolism, holds deeper meaning

prose poetry

looks like prose with no line breaks, sentences, but is read like poetry with repetition, imagery, symbolism, etc

How does the opening line of Girl set up the story?

already indicates an instructive tone, already telling someone what to do and what not to forget. It sets up the story as an expectation and to-do list, filled with warnings and rules

What kind of education is Girl?

gendered: how to be a girl in this time period. The girl is being told how to behave, act, dress, smile, how to clean, etc. She is told how to be socially accepted with this form of education.

How do stylistic decisions in Girl convey certain themes?

doesn't use sentences to show the theme that the list will go on forever, and blends accusations and commands in this sentence. The tone of command and the constant repetition of what to do and how to act indicate themes of control, gender roles, and the pressure and seriousness of these rules

Shadows on the Wall by Charles Mungoshi 

follows an unnamed boy reflecting on his fearful, distant relationship with his father; through flashbacks, he recalls silence and control that leave him powerless

What do we know about Charles Mungoshi?

Zimbabwean writer whose work explores themes of family issues, inner struggles, emotions, and silence

style

the way a literary work is written; the devices the author uses to express his or her thoughts and convey the work’s subject matter

Shadows on the Wall style

Psychological and lyrical

setting

that combination of place, historical time, and social milieu (a person’s social environment) that provides a general background

Shadows on the Wall setting (present)

his house

Shadows on the Wall setting (past)

flashbacks: family conflicts, memories, early life

motif

a unifying element in an artistic work, especially any recurrent image, symbol, theme, character type, subject, or narrative detail

Shadows on the Wall motif

shadows and silence symbolize fear, regret, and unresolved tension

metaphor

a figure of speech that associates two distinct things; the representation of one thing by another

Shadows on the Wall metaphor

shadows show memories and guilt

simile

a figure of speech that compares two distinct things by using words such as like or as

Shadows on the Wall simile

fear and regret compared to physical things such as shadows, the mood, and silence

personification

giving non-humans human traits

Shadows on the Wall personification

silence feels alive and is consuming the boy

symbol

something that, although it is of interest in its own right, stands for or suggests something larger and more complex, often an idea or a range of interrelated ideas, attitudes, and practices

point of view

first person, first person plural, second person, third person

Shadows on the Wall pov

third person limited; focuses on the protagonist's inner world and life

anaphora

a rhetorical figure involving the exact repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive lines or sentences; a type of parallelism

parallelism

a rhetorical figure used to emphasize ideas or images by using grammatically similar constructions; words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and even larger structural units may be consciously organized into parallel construction

Shadows on the Wall anaphora / parallelism

repeated images and phrases (shadows and silence) highlight cycles of memory

How does the opening line of Shadows on the Wall set up the story?

sets a stage of tension, darkness, and uneasiness immediately, already indicating this story isn't action-driven, but psychological. It also introduces the silence and the shadow

Setting of Shadow on the Wall?

Physically, the boy is mostly in the small house/hut, but mentally, he is in the inner landscape haunted by his memories and emotions that he will never be able to let out due to his restriction to speak

Moments in the present act as bookends for the story. What do we learn from the present?

the boy is hurt internally, he is silent, and clearly affected by the tension and atmosphere of his surroundings

What do we learn from the past? What is the function of the flashback?

show the conflicted family issues and the boy's emotions towards the conflicts; they give context on why the present moments are very heavy and filled with tension and motifs. 

Is silence a form of resistance in this story? Empowerment? Defeat? Loss?

resistance and loss in this story: It shows resistance because it shows how the boy withholds his speech and refuses to talk to his father due to their emotional distance. It also shows loss, as he cannot bring himself to express how he is feeling with his own family. It shows the limits of his power

How does Mungoshi convey the psychology of our unnamed protagonist through style and literary devices?

shadows and silence: the author explores the emotional and internal conflicts the boy is dealing with. His fear, loss, and isolation are shown through motifs and detailed imagery 

Everything in the Country Must by Colum McCann

Katie, a young girl in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, lives with her widowed father scarred by violence; when British soldiers rescue their horse, Katie feels gratitude, but her father’s cold resentment, tied to his wife’s death, shows how political conflict twists even simple acts of compassion

Historical context: The Troubles

a violent conflict between Protestant unionists wanting to remain in the UK and Catholic nationalists seeking unification with Ireland

Everything in the Country Must imagery

vivid contrasts: the girl's attitude vs the father’s attitude, the suffering of the horse, the feelings of hope vs devastation

Everything in the Country Must setting

Rural Northern Ireland, where violence occurs on a daily basis

Everything in this Country Must Point of View (How does narrator’s perspective impact our reading of the story?)

First person, from the teenage girl Katie. Her innocence softens the story and makes the violence more of a shock than an ordinary occurrence. You see political views through a child's narrative.  

Juxtaposition between violence and innocence

Violence: Soldiers, guns, shouting, memory of her family. Innocence: Katie, her desire to trust and see past hatred and violence. Side by side, it makes violence look rougher and innocence look more fragile.

How do motifs contribute to development of certain themes?

Motifs of animal and nature: Symbolize innocence, purity and life corrupted by violence.

Motifs of silence and speech: Shows fear, power, belittling, grudges, animosity, and unspoken tension.

All of these together develop themes of loss, good vs bad, unfulfilled closure, animosity, etc.

How does the ending of Everything in this Country Must reflect ambiguity or complexity regarding the possibility of peace or resolution?

The horse was saved, but by the wrong people, so in the fathers eyes, it's tainted. The fathers refusal of thanks reveals deep animosity and hatred towards the soldiers. Overall, it shows how small acts of cooperation will always be overshadowed by the past, bitterness, and trauma

Beets by Tiffany Midge

a humorous and satirical poem that uses wordplay to critique stereotypes and expectations placed on Native people; humor becomes a form of resistance, showing how laughter can challenge oppression while also celebrating creativity and resilience

What do we know about Tiffany Midge?

born of Sioux and German ancestry; uses satire and humor to critique racism, stereotypes, and inequality

tone

the attitude of the author toward the reader or subject matter of a literary work

Beets tone

Sarcastic and humorous

satire

a literary genre that uses humor, irony, or sarcasm to point out people’s flaws and bad habits, with the goal of encouraging change/improvement

Beets satire

Mocks how Native identity is overly misunderstood and seen as its typical stereotypes

hyperbole

exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally

Beets hyperbole

Exaggerates absurd scenarios to highlight the ridiculousness of stereotypes and racism

irony

a contradiction or incongruity between appearance or expectation and reality. Irony is commonly employed as a “wink” that the listener or reader is expected to notice so they are “in on the secret”

verbal irony

when a speaker deliberately says something contrary to what they actually mean; used for humor, emphasis, or critique

Beets verbal irony

Says one thing sarcastically but means something else; makes readers use context clues to see deeper meaning

How does the opening line of Beets set up the story?

blunt, self-explanatory, out of the ordinary, but funny. She describes serious topics in a school-class way, showing how her tone is casual and humorous. This indicates she will later be using humor to tell her story

Beets setting

hyperecological awareness; everyday places: school, her home, her backyard farm, her neighborhood. Framed in a way to highlight cultural misunderstanding, such as the farming and the need to sell the beets

The author explains humor can “bridge, heal, and diffuse.” She continues, “a means for critique against the institutions that oppress. Humor also serves as an act of resistance, which ultimately can lead to empowerment and transformation” 

Do you see evidence of this in “Beets”?

humor mocks the institutions and attitudes towards Native people in her story. By turning stereotypes into jokes, Midge belittles and mocks stereotypes, which retains power and gets to truly show Native people and their truths her way

On the Road at Eighteen by Yu Hua

18 year old sets out alone in search of opportunity; along the way, he faces exploitation, betrayal, and indifference from strangers, revealing the harshness of society and the vulnerability of youth; his optimism slowly turns to disappointment, showing how the journey into adulthood is marked by loss of innocence and the struggle to survive in an unforgiving world

What do we know about Yu Hua?

well-known Chinese writer, grew up in a small town near Shanghai; some of his works include ordinary people facing cruelty, random violence, and disillusionment. His childhood during the Revolution shaped his main themes, such as a focus on suffering and an attempt to avoid certain terms, such as the ideological manipulation of realism in his work. His stories often show how individuals are struck by the harsh reality

How does the opening line of On the Road at Eighteen set up the story?

Starts the story with an eighteen-year-old boy on the road/little highway; introduces the narrator’s innocence, youth, and journey; full of movement and action-driven; sets up a scene of transition: young and innocence to adulthood and harsh truths

On the Road at Eighteen Setting

The physical setting that we are given in this story is mainly the asphalt road in rural China, surrounded by hills and few people. It's a small highway; The social setting shows how strangers quickly take advantage of each other and abuse each other's kindness. No one is safe, no one is friends. They are willing to exploit each other for their own needs.

Describe how the main character in On the Road at Eighteen evolves throughout the story.

At the start of the story, the narrator is innocent, naive, trusting, and hopeful of finding the inn by asking multiple people. After going through many experiences, (truck drivers, workers, robberies, getting beaten up), we find the narrator has lost his innocence and old perspective of the world. Instead of viewing the world as trusting and on his side, he views the world for it's true cruelty, he has been disillusioned, and is just as vulnerable as before.

How does the point of view impact the reader’s connection to the narrator’s experience?

This story is told in 1st person, so we are getting everything from the narrators side of the story. This helps us connect and really see how the narrator sees the world, and how he gradually realizes its not his illusions. Hearing everything from his perspective, we feel the narrator's vulnerability

What is the significance of the journey motif?

The Road: The transition between childhood to adulthood. Childhood is all about illusions, vulnerability, and innocence, but as we see the transition to adulthood, we see a loss of innocence, a new lens on the world, and a loss of hope.

The Inn: The Inn represents a safe sanctuary for the narrator. The inn is a want for belonging, comfortability, and familiarness. The inn is supposed to provide closure and comfort the narrator, give him a sense of belonging and warmth. The inn is the final destination of this journey, where he is supposed to find security, but he finds his sense of warmth not in a physical holiday inn, but somewhere else, something he probably wouldn't have thought would be his inn in the beginning of the story, the fragmented truck.

What do you observe about the repetition?

Yu Hua constantly repeats moments of betrayal, loss of hope, and imagined hope. Betrayal: We see how the truck driver consistently watches the narrator get beaten up after trying to defend the trucker's belongings while laughing and observing from a distance. Seeing how the trucker laughs at the narrator and lets him get hurt shows the betrayal of their short-lived friendship. Loss of hope: After being beaten up many times, and being left with none of his belongings, such as the backpack, the narrator is left with a loss of hope, no way to recover, no way to get to his inn, no way to gain hope and innocence in the world again. Imagined hope: We see the narrator constantly yearning for the inn, which is his imagined hope of safety, comfort, warmth, and security. Whenever things go wrong, such as the truck breaking down or having to continue walking endlessly, we see the narrator find his way back to thinking about a faraway safe space that he imagined/created in his mind. This image is an imagination of hope, that he does have a happy ending, and he does have a destination. He puts his mind in this mode that he needs to get to his inn because it gives him closure that he isn't lost and he isn't going down an endless path of cruelty and loss. These repetitions overall reinforce the idea that ordinary cruelty is a constant pattern in this world.

How do ordinary objects such as apples, backpack, etc. take on deeper meanings?

Apples: Symbolizes survival and hunger. When being refused to being given an apple, people will resume to exploitation and cruelty. When being given an apple, it symbolizes human kindness and a small hope of generosity.

Backpack: Symbolizes his innocence. The backpack was being dragged with him until it gets stolen, just like his innocence got stolen by the truck driver and thieves that exposed him to so much cruelty. His backpack also represents his youth and childhood, which connects back to his innocence because backpacks are used for school, school is meant for children, children have innocence.

Inn: A symbol of shelter and comfort. The inn represented an imagined safe space that grows in his mind because it gives him hope that he has a sense of belonging and warmth. But at the end, the inn represents how imagination cannot surpass or erase your reality.

avant garde

people who focused on uprooting reality and overthrowing tried and true principles of narrative; made reality contorted and implausible

understatement

the presentation of something as being smaller, worse, or less important than it actually is

connotation

the associations evoked by a word beyond its denotation, or literal meaning