LIT 376 Midterm augh

we WILL make it through gang 🙏

Ernest Hemingway

Author of In Our Time

In Our Time

Ernest Hemingway's first collection of short stories, first set in Michigan discussing a character named Nick and then a few European-set stories about dysfunctional marriages

Nick Adams

In Our Time; son of a doctor, watches his father work and sees a Native American man commit suicide. Tries to date Majorie but finds it no fun when he cannot teach her anymore. Becomes a veteran; puts emphasis on the small things like wetting his hands before touching a fish.

Henry Adams

In Our Time; Nick's father, the doctor. Prideful and gruff.

Mr. Elliot

In Our Time; anxious man who cannot sexually satisfy his wife, so she starts to hang out with her "girl friend" to represent male incompetence

Mrs. Elliot

In Our Time; a true Southern woman. Not satisfied with her husband so begins to hang out with her "girl friend" instead.

Modernism

the breakdown of traditional society under the pressures of modernity. fragmentation, the interwar period, a time of belief that all of humanity's structures were either destroyed or proven to be falsehoods

T. S. Eliot

Author of "The Waste Land", believes that poetry combines emotions and uses them to express ideas that are not real human emotion at all

The Wasteland

poem by T.S. Eliot, discussing the world after WW1, uses fragmentation to show different perspectives of the crumbling of society ("I am not Russian": the ruin of geographical borders, "Unreal City": the ruin of worker spirit)

"A Game of Chess"

The Wasteland; theorized to be an autobiographical conversation between Eliot and his wife, who had a dysfunctional relationship

"Hurry up please it's time"

The Wasteland; a woman in an English pub gossiping about her friend Lil, whose husband has just left the army, and how she needs to give her husband a good time or he'll leave her (he's already annoyed because he has bad teeth). She's had 5 kids already and the last one almost killed her so she got an abortion. Saying goodbye to everyone in the bar ("Bill, Lou, May")

The Sound and the Fury

Story by William Faulkner about the Compson family and their descension into ruin

William Faulkner

author of The Sound and the Fury

Yoknapatawpha County

A fictional county based on William Faulkner's hometown

Benjy Compson

The youngest of the Compson children and narrator of the novel's first chapter. Born Maury Compson, his name is changed to Benjamin as to not offend his Uncle Maury. Mentally disabled with no sense of time

Caddy Compson

Only daughter in the Comspon family, loved by Benjy, marries Sydney Hubert Head, but he divorces her after he realizes that the baby she bears him is not his.

Mr. Jason

Compson family father, has a big effect on Quentin, full of witticisms, gives Quentin a lot of advice, "articulate nihilist"

Quentin Compson

The oldest of the Compson children and the narrator of the novel's second chapter. Commits suicide by drowning himself just before the end of his first year at Harvard. Obsessed with time and how to escape it + Caddy's virginity because he wants to "save" her by taking her out of time

Jason Compson

Youngest son of the Compson family, has to head the family later in life, racist, sexist and antisemitic, very obsessed with his power over people

Caroline Compson

Compson family mother, very self-pitying, always worried, guilt-trips everyone, calls Benjy "her punishment", hypochondriac, constantly talks about her approaching death and how she won't be a burden to anyone anymore after it happens, super attached to Jason and fuels his ego like gasoline to a fire

Luster Gibson

Compson family servant tasked with entertaining Benjy 24/7

Dilsey Gibson

Lead black worker at the Compson household, raises all of the children and makes all the meals for the family, has little to no concern for herself, only for the family, "I seen de first and I seen de last".

Quentin

Caddy's daughter, escapes after stealing the money that was legally hers from Jason, runs off with a dancer from the show visiting town

The Oven Bird

Robert Frost; poem about a low-flying bird representing the inability to escape modern infrastructure and technology even while in nature

Robert Frost

The Oven Bird, Design, Home Burial

Design

Robert Frost; poem about a spider, heal-all, and moth (all white) representing the questioning of the design of nature

Home Burial

Robert Frost; likely autobiographical poem about the loss of a child

William Carlos Williams

American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine. Many of his earlier poems are influenced by Dadaist and Surrealist principles. Williams disliked Ezra Pound's and especially T.S. Eliot's (see The Waste Land) frequent use of allusions to foreign languages, religion, history or art, and drew his themes from what he called "the local." He coined the expression "No ideas but in things", his famous summation of his poetic method. What he meant is that poets should leave traditional poetic forms and unnecessary literary allusions aside and try to see the world through the eyes of an ordinary person.

This is Just to Say

William Carlos Williams; the plums/icebox poem

The Yachts

William Carlos Williams, poem about the dichotomy between showy upper class sports and the exploitation of the working/lower class

Burning the Christmas Greens

William Carlos Williams; poem about burning past structures/past traditions, a new future in the distance, a chance at renewal

W.E.B. Du Bois

fought for African American rights. believed in the "talented tenth"

I am a Negro

Langston Hughes; depicting African Americans as workers, victims, singers, and slaves

Langston Hughes

African American poet who described the rich culture of african American life using rhythms influenced by jazz music. He wrote of African American hope and defiance, as well as the culture of Harlem and also had a major impact on the Harlem Renaissance.

Zora Neale Hurston

author of Their Eyes were Watching God

Tillie Olsen

Author of Yonnondio

Yonnondio

Tillie Olsen; novel about the Holbrook family and their struggle to survive during the Great Depression

Mazie Holbrook, aka Bigeyes

Yonnondio; Young girl who is tasked with taking care of her siblings when her parents' can't, is almost thrown into the mines by Sheen McEvoy, a man who went insane because he was heavily disfigured by a mining accident that burnt his face off

Anna Holbrook

Yonnondio; The family mother, has a breakdown at one point and becomes very dissociative and distant, is repeatedly raped by Jim, wants her children to have an education

Jim Holbrook

Yonnondio; The family father, lives as a coal worker, physically and emotionally abusive to his family, moves them away and they go to a farm but cannot stay because the bank is taking so much of their money, exploited as a sewer worker

Will Holbrook

Yonnondio; Second-oldest, was a sweet kid but got angrier and crueler as time went by (was supposed to be a Communist later on in the story but it was never finished)

Ben Holbrook

Third-oldest, pretty young throughout the whole story, very attached to Anna. weak in body and suffers from lung disease especially when the family moves to the smelly, unclean area next to the packing houses.

Jimmie and Bess Holbrook

Yonnondio; The youngest son and daughter in the family. Although her role is very limited in the novel, Bess closes the unfinished novel with an optimistic tone when she grabs a jar lid and bangs it enthusiastically against the floor.

Tracy

Yonnondio; Jim's ex-coworker who quit after the work conditions at their job became ridiculous. Was never able to find a job again and turned into a homeless man begging on the streets. Represented how there was no means of revolution or ways for workers to stick up for themselves because they needed their jobs desperately (Jim thinks of him as a fool and thinks the only reason he quit was because he didn't have a family to support)

Johannesburg Mines

Langston Hughes; poem that refuses to use flowery/wordy writing to make an aesthetic of the exploitation of black men by Europeans

Let America Be America Again

Langston Hughes; poem about the labels of America but how they only work for those with privilege

Goodbye, Christ

Langston Hughes; Discusses the commercialization of Christianity and the image of God being used to promote bigoted ideals/scam people into sending money to exploitive companies

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Langston Hughes, Harlem Renaissance