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?

identifies herself as a narrator of experience and perspective

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

we are convinced by books that their ideas shape our perceptions

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

came from Western literature, which portrayed the continent as a pitiful catastrophe; unable to form similarities between her and Africans, so she fell victim to believing the patronizing stereotypes

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

shows that she too, falls victim to believing a single story. Her message is that everyone is vulnerable to believing a single story

How does one create a single story?

by showing people or a group of people as one thing, and only one thing, over and over again

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

one who creates the single story holds the power to define people and decide which stories dominate

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

showcases diverse stories, fostering deeper connections; stories wield power to marginalize; balancing narratives restores dignity and celebrates our shared humanity

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 the author?

Jamaica Kincaid grew up in Antigua, an island in the Caribbean. She moved to New York City when she was 16 years old. She is currently a professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University

prose

ordinary written or spoken expression; expression that exhibits purposeful grammatical design

poetry

written with the attention to line breaks, rhythm, sound, and imagery; often uses figurative language

prose poetry

when the line between prose and poetry becomes blurred

How does the opening line set up the story?

acts as a command and expectation, highlighting the cultural expectations of women. It begins on a Monday, emphasizing the beginning of an everyday routine

What kind of education is this?

instructions on social and gender expectations

How do stylistic decisions convey certain themes?

single, unbroken sentences filled with commands mirror the overwhelming pressure placed on the daughter; repetitive rhythm emphasizes that she is trapped within these societal 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 the author?

born on a farm near Chivu in central Zimbabwe

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

setting

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

motif

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

metaphor

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

simile

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

personification

giving non-humans human traits

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

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

How does the opening line set up the story?

sets a tense, uneasy mood in which the narrator is in a confined space with shadows

Setting?

dark, confined bedroom at night; unnamed African rural village in Zimbabwe

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

while the boy has grown up, he still carries the fear and mistrust from his childhood; his maturity symbolizes a loss of innocence and comfort

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

childhood fears: terror of the shadows, sense of isolation, lack of comfort from his father; reveals origin of lasting distrust and anxiety

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

form of resistance when the boy refuses to call his father’s wife “mother” and doesn’t listen to his father

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

the metaphor of the “gift of language emphasizes how the unnamed protagonist is stripped of the tools to articulate his thoughts; this conveys his inner confinement and quiet resistance; loss of voice and identity

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 in Northern Ireland (late 1960s–1998) between Protestant unionists wanting to remain in the UK and Catholic nationalists seeking unification with Ireland

Imagery

drowning horse symbolizes survival and violence; the silence after the rescue shows how bitterness overrides gratitude

Setting

in rural Northern Ireland during the Troubles, the land feels tense and divided

Point of View (How does narrator’s perspective impact our reading of the story?)

Katie’s innocent perspective contrasts with her father’s bitterness; highlights how violence distorts even small acts of kindness

Juxtaposition between violence and innocence

shows the Troubles through Katie’s eyes; she feels gratitude when soldiers save her horse, while her father responds with silence and resentment because he knows about the violence

How do motifs contribute to development of certain themes?

Motifs such as the rain/hurricane/flood contribute to the development of the theme as it makes demonstrates the horses suffering which could be compared to the father and daughters suffering after their mom and brother died. 

How does the story’s ending reflect ambiguity or complexity regarding the possibility of peace or resolution?

Through Katies perspective it was hard to witness her dad killing the horse and since she’s so young the author decided to keep it brief.

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 the author?

born of Hunkpapa Sioux and German ancestry; grew up in the Pacific Northwest and currently lives in Seattle

tone

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

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

hyperbole

exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally

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

How does the opening line set up the story? (BEETS)

The opening line sets up the story with the attitude that she wont get far in life and wont succeed because of her background

Setting?

early 1980s during the period that the author calls hyperecological awareness

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”?

Yes she uses humor to exemplify what others have said 

she mixes childish topics to more serious topics using humor  

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 the author?

considered one of China's most important novelists, part of the avant-garde, one of his novels was made into a film that won the Grand Prix at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival

How does the opening line set up the story?

It sets up the tone for a long journey that feels never ending just like how after a wave there will be new ones and it lasts forever so after a bump on the road or a car another one will appear and the road keeps on going

Setting?

vague place with no exact location, an area with a road surrounded by mountains, with no civilization in sight

Describe how the main character evolves throughout the story.

The main character starts out alone looking for an inn to stay and the comfort of it and eventually finds that comfort in a truck, just because its not presented as a comfortable place doesn’t mean it isn’t 

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

The readers point of view impacts the connection to the narrators experience as the readers are younger and most of them haven’t experienced being alone to guide yourself to an unknown journey. 

What is the significance of the journey motif?

Throughout the journey, the narrator is searching for a comfortable place on this lonely journey, but as the story goes on, he finds self-belief and more confidence in himself and stands up for what’s right. 

What do you observe about the repetition?

Theres a repetition of a endless voyage and it sets for a moody tone and a unconfident tone as he’s almost complaining

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

They are showing how basic items can make such apples have such an impact on the narrators life and how he goes about his journey. 

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