New Orleans Literature Final Exam

The Awakening

By: Kate Chopin

Edna Pontieller was a housewife who had a mental and physical awakening in Grand Isle. After her awakening, Edna beings to deny her duties as a wife and mother and people notice that she looks different. She could only live her truth if she lied and said she was still with her husband. It is implied at the end of the story that Edna commits suicide in the ocean.

The Goodness of St. Roche (Dixon)

By: Alice Dunbar Nelson

Stones of the Village

By: Alice Dunbar Nelson

Victor Grabert is a mixed man who moves to New Orleans to work in a book shop. The bookshop owner dies and leaves Victor tuition money to go to Tulane, even though it is an all white university. Victor realizes he is white passing and becomes a lawyer and a member of petit bourgeouise. He dies at the end still carrying the weight of his lie.

The Pearl and the Oyster

By: Alice Dunbar Nelson.

Auguste Picou is the main protagonist who is Afro-Creole. Rags to riches pipeline. Married and moved out of the creole district to the Irish channel. He worked in the billiards with the Irish. They helped him assimilate into society, but in the end the Irish turned on him. Finding out his real identity and forcing Picou and his wife to move home.

Bonne Maman

By: Grace King

Bonne Maman is a elderly creole woman who is poor and lives with her grandaughter and supports herself by sewing for other black women. One of Bonne Mamans pet slaves, Aza, arrives at Bonne Mamans house to find that she had died and was about to have her funeral. Bonne Maman was Azas mistress and she loved Maman. She invited Bonne Mamans friends and colleagues from her past to her funeral. They honor her and help to create a future for her grandaughter.

Tite Poulette (Dixon)

By: George Washington Cable

Kristain Koppig is the main protagonist. Discusses quadroons.

La Philosophe

From the novel Grandissimes

By: George Washington Cable

Describes an Afro-Creole woman, Palmyre going into the apothecary.

The Story of Bras Coupe

From Grandissimes

By: George Washington Cable

Palmyre is an enslaved Afro Creole woman who has power over white people, specifically the women. Bras Coupe is an immigrant who was captured and taken to the US to be a slave. Bras Coupe is the epitome of masculinity and refuses to do his duties and becomes violent. Palmyre is more cunning and is better at manipulating white people with her beauty to get what she wants. Bras coupe puts a curse on the plantation and dies but Palmyre lives.

The Marriage of Conscience

By: Armand Lanusse

The Mulatto

By: Victor Sejour

A wealthy plantation owner, Alfred, buys an african woman and has a mixed child with her. The child, Georges, grows up on the plantation not knowing the identity of his father. As his mother dies she gives him a portrait of his dad and says not to look at it until hes 25. Alfred tries to rape Georges wife and she pushes Alfred. Georges wife is hanged for assault and George runs away and joins the maroons. Georges goes back for revenge and beheads Alfred as he we about to tell him he was his father. George looks at the portrait when he is 25 and kills himself when he finds out the truth.

The Marriage of Compair Lapin

By: Alcee Fortier

A rabbit marries the daughter of the lion king. The lioness and rabbit escape to the elephants village and ask to seek refuge in their town and the elephant king approves. Their marriage is toxic and abusive. The lioness goes home to tell her father that the rabbit abused and her and it starts a war between the elephant village and the lions. The rabbit and master fox team up to create a plan to lure lions into a trap. In the end, the elephants win the war and there is peace in the land. The rabbits are supposed to represent black people and the lions represent white culture.

The Little Finger

By: Alcee Fortier

About a grandpa telling his grandkids about how his ancestors were brought to America and were made to be slaves.

Expeditus

By: Brenda Marie Osbey

Follows a freed black man and an enslaved black man. The enslaved man is an iron worker and believes he plays a role in cursing the city of New Orleans through the veves he creates. He does not believe in religion and wants the city to parish due to the terrible treatment he has received as a slave. The free man is very religious and questions the enslaved mans morals.

The Business of Pursuit: San Malo's Prayer

By: Brenda Marie Osbey

San Malo is a man who was killed by Luis Congo and he foucght against everything that Luis was. The poem is about betrayal of brotherhood. Luis Congo was a black man that executed many in his community.

The Head of Luis Congo Speaks

By: Brenda Marie Osbey

Luis Congo is an executioner who beheads people. He betrayed his people and regrets his action after dying. In the story, Luis Congo has a speaker speaking for him because Luis only has his head. It is symbolic because Luis died the same way that his victims did.

"Hardest of all, though, was when Grandmere sternly bade him cease speaking the soft, creole patois that they chattered together, and forced him to learn English. The result was a confused jumble which was no language at all"

From Stones of The Village By: Alice Dunbar Nelson

"i take my men, my women along the river road. / we go a-hacking and a-slashing / our bloody ungloved hands a-steaming— / we taste your freedom, luís congo. / your dying prayer, / your dying prayer, / brother"

Spoken by San Malo in The Business of Pursuit: San Malo's Prayer By: Brenda Marie Osbey

"You laugh/ you drink/ and for a moment/ your pain is gone./ but i am here to tell you:/ it is not over./ a thousand thousand betrayals hound you/ among even those of you/ dancing on this very water./ it is not over./ he is only dead./ he is not yet through/ with you."

Spoken by Luis Congo in The Head of Luis Congo By: Brenda Marie Osbey

"i helped to make the curse, that cures this wretched city, that sends it year after year, into the great god's sea"

Spoken by the enslaved man in Expeditus by: Brenda Marie Osbey

"When the officers of the king will come to get the horses and mules for the cavalry to go to war, they will say: 'That's a fellow with long ears; he is a mule; let us take him.'

Spoken by Compair Lapin in The Marriage of Compair Lapin By: Alcee Fortier

"for months the fierce heart within her silent bosom had been leaping and shouting and seeing visions of fire and blood"

From Grandissimes: The Story of Bras Coupe

By: George Washington Cable

"The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude."

From The Awakening By: Kate Chopin

"The apothecary felt an inward nervous start as there advanced into the light of his hanging lamp and toward the spot where he had halted, just outside the counter, a woman of the quadroon caste, of superb stature and poise, severely handsome features, clear, tawny skin and large, passionate black eyes."

From Grandissimes: La Philosphe

By: George Washington Cable

'I think my vengeance is worthy of your own . . . I would have sold my soul to the Devil, had he promised me this moment.'

Spoken by Alfred in The Mulatto

By: Victor Sejour

"The piano had already commenced it's dances"

Referencing Aza From Bonne Momen By Grace King

"Before we came here, poor devils, we were all free, we were not obliged to work for any matter"

Spoken by the grandpa

From The Little Finger By Alcee Fortier