ENGL1004 - Final Exam Review

Charles Darwin

Associated with the term ‘natural selection' and evolution that people were able to survive environmental pressures and adapt to transform.

What was Darwin's focus in his argument about natural selection?

Adaptation and response over generation was the focus.

Malthusian Crisis

An association in regards to natural selection, developed by Thomas Malthos. Suggests that mechanisms must exist in order to support bodies and populations in any form.

Variation under Domestication

A part of Darwin's theory that directs towards human intervention and the recurring struggle to exist.

Struggle for Existence

A part of Darwin's theory that suggests that ‘survival of the fittest’ is one of the most prominent examples towards the argument of natural selection.

How does Darwin bring his argument together?

Using both art and science; states that natural selection is immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts in regards to works of nature.

Mimesis

The ability to reproduce something you can create in an art form. Questions how the mind creates art and how they reproduce in the world.

What does Darwin mean when he states that natural selection is ‘a power incessantly ready for action’?

He says that humans can reproduce the idea of selection, but it'll always be a poor copy; it'll never be possible to replicate the process completely.

Why must we pay attention to the power of selection?

Helps us find the ways we misread nature, how make assumptions about the natural world, and how we can't conceive/hold the capacity of what's happening exactly.

Genealogy

A concept filled with complications, contradictions and variations. Also a process where species change characteristics over generations.

Colonization of the Mind

An argument that states that colonialism is not merely geographical, but existential. Includes the colonizer's religion, education, imposition of language that creates the narrative.

Captialism

An economic system and ideology where private individuals/businesses own capital goods and the free market controls the production. Assumes in the ideological sense that government has little to no regulation- and are seen as good.

Communism

An ideology where the masses overthrow the elite; a dictatorship run by the working class acts on behalf of the people. Suggests public ownership, classless society and collective commonality in ownership.

Fascism

An ideology that co-exists with capitalist economies but makes claims of the collective good. Authoritatian political system that suggests extreme nationalism and autocratic dictatorship.

Modernism

A Twentieth Century art style that shuns linear and decorative expression with fractured pieces towards reality. Rejects aesthetic tradition that connects towards unification, single points of view or unbroken narratives.

Romanticism

The literary tradition that involves the spontaneous overflow of power feelings recollected in tranqulity.

Socialism

An ideology set towards fairness and equality in a society. An economc and political theory where it suggests no private property and that production is owned/controlled by the state. Transitional between two different ideologies.

Skepticism

A perspective that is the suspension of disbelief; slows down and asks questions to find reasoning in conclusions to eliminate blind faith.

David Hume

A prominent individual who utilized skepticism, and is considered the most famous example. Carried suspicion and evidence.

Realism

The perceiving perspectives of the real world. Questions experiences and considers ideas of a nation towards the average human experience.

Amatory Fiction

A type of genre that involves a woman being seduced by a man who is considered deceitful. Abandoned and holds a role of passivity.

Frame Narrative

A type of literary device where a narrative serves as the outer mechanism for one or more inner stories. Outer context, point of reference or perspectives are provided for the inner story told by characters within the outer story.

Mock Epic

A satirical poem that includes epithets, long speeches and divine interventions. Genre puts roles of the heroes as ‘fools'.

Imperialism

A defining nature of nations that seek to expand itself through worldbuilding projects. Involves expanding outwards through different nations and focuses on expansion.

What is the center of colonialism?

The inequality aspect of certain groupings of people. The sought out idea of validating “primary culture" from the colonizer perspective.

Sentimental Novel

A type of genre that elicits tenderness, compassion or sympathy from the reader. Is usually driven by the sorrows of a sensitive character.

Imagination

The creative power that involves the transformation of raw material of perception into art.

Stream of Consciousness

A modernist technique that focuses on representing psychological interiority. Captures how the mind free associates. Suggested by authors and critics that irrelevant thoughts connect to repressed impulses or emotions in the psyche.

Travel Narrative

A literary style that characterized by movement from metropolitan centres into a geographical or anacrhonistic space. Movement from current time into primonial ‘before' time. Assumed by the traveller of ownership over to a new place.

Orientialism

The will of the West to control and understand the Eastern ‘other' cultures. The western cultural depictions that are stereotypical, static, and viewed in a view to justify colonial power and superiority of other cultures.

Apparition

A ghost-like permanence that is suggested a collectivity of transparency. Found in a prominent example of modernism poems.

Bough

The fragmented imagery of nature that branches as a collective. Isn't entirely seen, but can be envisioned as a natural environment away from man-made structures.

Metonymy

Refers as ‘the apart that stands for the whole'. Connects a group of people into simplier construction/broader definition.

Liberalism

An ideology that focuses on democracy and assumes capitalism is the more fundamentally correct mechanism for its style of government. Non-collectivist, but views competition as healthy. Expansive and looks for security in relationship with other states.

Novella

A type of genre style that is not as long as conventional novel, but is bigger than a short story.

Theory of Relativity

A theory suggested by Albert Einstein that perception provides us with the thought of moving as an exchange between the majority. States that people imagine different variants of spaces depending on our positions and unique perspectives.

Theory of Light

A theory suggested by Einstein that states that two things that don't make sense with another exist in the same parallels. Refers that light is both a particle and a weight.

What is the most prominent suggestion that Albert Einstein provides in his theories towards space and time?

Time and motion are not absolute- but rather, relative to the individual observer.

How was Einstein's idea of relativity taken by the general public?

Shook perspectives of people on how we perceived reality and what we took for granted. Uncertainity in realization developed powerful expressions in dismembered pieces- similarity in modernism expression.

Wittgenstein

A philosopher who questioned in what way attachment could be stable. Suggests that language fails when we can't tell from physical view when we make assumptions.

How do we conquer against making general assumptions, according to Wittgenstein?

As language is not complex enough to define reality in front of us, we must always question the general cultural questions- follow skepticism.

William James

A general philosopher that attaches towards consciousness and thought. Argues that the ‘state of consciousness’ is always changing and continuous.

Positive Checks

According to the Mathusian Crisis, when the population line crosses the food line. Refers to ‘premature death' in order to bring population back down- including war, famine, and disease.

Preventative Checks

According to the Malthusian Crisis, when the population line crosses the food line. Refers to the ‘reduction' of such risks happening, involving postponing marriages or holding moral restriants.

How can we perceive Darwin's theory of evolution in a literary perspective through poetry?

See nature as a theater of constraint/invisible conflict. View the malthusian influence as a tragic theme. View tensions between beauty and horror of fighting to adapt and survive.

Randomness (Darwin's Theory of Evolution)

The ‘blind' part of the evolutionary engine. The idea that nature doesn't plan improvements, but rather variations appear at random- not the survival of mutations.

How does Darwin view species in mutations?

Sees them as ‘passive', while the enviornment is active in selection.

The Edwardian Period

A period in the 20th century that spanned from the reign of KIng Edward from 1901 - 1910. Held a patriarchy and sexually repressed society. Would later on transition into a different prominent period.

In a Station of the Metro

A modernism example by Ezra Pound. Captures iagism and represents fragments of people, alienating the individual into a collective. Utilizes apparation and creates tension between collectivity and isolation.

Oread

An example of modernism by H.D. Captures iagism and utilizes metonymy by referring a collective as a broad functionality. Uses nature as an overwhelming aspect that commands forward in a imperative tone.

Fountain

A example of modernism by Marcel Duchampc and Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven. Challenged the idea of modernism breaking away from traditional rules by presenting ordinary sculptures and questioned people to ask if art was defined by craftmanship, or by the idea.

Heart of Darkness

By Joesph Conrad. A novella that explores human nature through the Congo State in Africa and the exploitation of civilization and darkness in the soul. Considered a infamous modernism text that explores imperialism and the human psyche.

Why is Conrad's attention to the human psyche and psychology as a whole important to Heart of Darkness?

It offers vivid description of Marlow's thoughts and explores the hypocrisy of moral confusion and ambiguity during his journey.

Why is ‘darkness' such an important motif in the novella Heart of Darkness?

It's operation in the inability to see through the human condition serves as a understanding figure of operating towards metaphorically/existentially towards colonialism and the human psyche.

How does the steam engine operate as the ‘mind’ in Heart of Darkness?

It functions as a stream of consciousness with mechanisms and structural aspects. With Marlow struggling to pass through the river with the steam boat; whatever takes over our world, it becomes a metaphor of ourselves.

How does Heart of Darkness express how language fails?

The character, Marlow, refers to inscrutable places and fails to describe what he sees and how he describes people throughout his tale.

What are some critiques of Heart of Darkness

The insertions of horror being depicted towards Africian civilizations as ‘cannibals', darkness of violence being compelled towards imperialism, and is laden with misogynistic imagery/language.

Charles Marlow

The protagonist of Heart of Darkness. A steamboat captain who views the world with cynicism and skepticism. A wedge between the two extremities of the Company and a different character. Contaminated by ‘darkness’ of his experiences.

Kurtz

One of the characters from Heart of Darkness. A geninus of the Company who is viewed with honor by the protagonist. Runs the inner station deep in the Congo River. Is reported ill and dies during the voyage back.

What are Kurtz dying words, and why do they matter?

“The horror! The horror!” ; Refers to how his judgment of the world and of himself is unspeakable, to what he has fallen to. Language cannot refer to what he has experienced.

What is Conrad most interested in, when exploring themes during the narrative of his book ‘Heart of Darkness'?

He is interested in how language fails us. The book is a novella about the failure of language and describes things as inscrutible/indescribable.

How can Heart of Darkness be seen as a travel narrative, according to its geopgrahical terms?

It's movement from the central station to the inner periphery of the Congo River. Suggests the movement of a European person moving from a colonial place into a mysterious place. Breaks down language into the subconscious.

Anachronistic Spaces

The referral of different times from the time that it currently is. Out of the proper time period, separating from the era it is currently placed in.

What does Kurtz look into before he dies, and how?

He sees death- the abyss- and the Congo itself, intertwining into ‘nothingness'. Darkness makes no sense, and creates an error in the narrative. As a result, the settings correlations with ‘light' and ‘darkness' clash with nonsensical descriptions.

How does orientialism tie in with the novella Heart of Darkness?

Marlow's description of the Congo being a European fantasy. The ‘creation of the third world' is depicted with the settings colonization periods of the river and the creation of its colonies.

How does Orientalism create the image of the other to define positivity in certain cultures?

It creates fantasies that contrive European cultures as a way to depict the ‘third world' as a creation of Europe itself. Explores how we define ourselves against what are that and fragments translations into our own interpretations.

Erewhon

By Samuel Butler. A utopian novel that turns its conventions upside down as a satire as a ‘unutopia' towards Victorian society. Main themes involve religion and evolution and criticize victorian life and the Darwinian theory.

Unutopia

A factor of society that is turned inside out. Not to be mistaken with a dystopia.

Musical Banks (Erewhon)

A satirical institution that represent churches. Are invented by Butler as part of his critiques towards Victorian religion.

The Book of the Machines

A small essay in Erewhon that makes arguments about the present moment, speaks on anxieties and predicaments in today's world, and mocks the role of technology in human life.

Panpsychism

The belief that inanimate objects in the universe resemvles consciousness or exist in a state of awareness.

What idea does Butler take in the claim of Darwin's theory of natural evolution being superior?

The exttent that human beings become both the consciousness of the machine, and the machine becoming our consciousness; evolution in something that is inanimate and doesnt hold development in such.

How does Erewhon reflect the concern to the dependency of consciousness into machines in today's word?

The push towards artifical intelligence and the relation to things that outgrow us; reflects the increase of machine development that demonstrates folly and human ego.

Intertextuality

The referral of a text in a text that makes references to other stories. Examples include Blake's ‘Tyger' from his Stories of Innocence/Experience.

Postcolonial Literature

A genre that questions on how we write back to ‘empire', focusing on authors from former colonies.

Social Darwinism

The theory of nature that is applied to people and society, claiming groups are naturally ‘stronger' or ‘better' than others. Success and power contrives more ‘fit’ to those who are in poverty and struggle.

What was the popular assumption during the 19th century due to Darwin's theory?

The cultural idea that imperialism that misapplied his theory into human society. Argued that societal, economic and racial hierarchies were natural and justified racism inequality as progress.

The River Between

By Ngugi wa Thiong'o. A postcolonial text that takes place in Kenya towards differental cultures and the struggle between identifying binaries between the period of colonization. Divided by tradition and Christainity.

Waiyaki

The protagonist of ‘The River Between’. Is believed to a natural born leader who will rescue the Gikuyu from the white colonialists.

Chege

The father of the protagonist in The River Between. A seer and elder from Kameno who seeks tradition. Sends Waiyaki for education; dies shortly after Waiyaki's transition into manhood from a rite of passage.

What are the two town names in The River Between?

Kameno and Makuyu

Bildungsroman

A role of an individual protagonist that develops through the novel during the trials of growing up.

What does the novel send out towards education, during the telling of The River Between?

It will not bring decolonization; the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house. A prevalent theme in the postcolonial text.

Kinuthia

The protagonist's friend in The River Between. Studies alongside at the Siriana mission and assists with the building of a school in Kameno. Is split between the two binaries of Christainity and tradition, and as a result fails to protct him at the end from a character's scheme.

Kabonyi

An elder from Makuyu in The River Berween. Described as a devout Christain, but later wishes to protect the tribe from white colonialist influence while holding jealously of Waiyaki's influence. Results in defeating him after slandering his name of breaking customs- the ridges falling into silence.

What is Waiyaki's story described as, throughout the story The River Between?

Not as a hero to save people from colonialism, but an ordinary person who faces difficult circumstances and struggles to find himself in the two binaries playing between Makuyu and Kameno.

Decolonizing the Mind

Written by Ngugi. A response of the British culture in Africian colonies, where it explains the role of language and its impact in culture, history, and identity.

What is the defining feature of post-colonialal texts, as suggested from notes?

Limitality and the self of self

Scramble For Africa

A moment in history where imperial powers claimed control of most of a specific continent, securing territorial claims and control through colonization. Controlled by seven European countries, including the France and the British.

What were the two motivations behind the Scramble for Africa?

Competition between Europeaon countries and basic racism.

Berlin West Africa Conference

A meeting that concentrates around the scramble at the period of time. Resolved the claim over the Congo, where it is named as the ‘Congo Free States'. Settles what is counted as a legitimate claim over Africa territory and legalizes occupation to justify land theft.

In Heart of Darkness, why is the exploration of ‘profound darkness' expressed in a category error?

His views of the imperial project and his lack of regard for the people of the Congo (viewing them as savages) utilizes stereotypes of the ‘dark sides of our being' towards racism- which as a result, creates a blind spot in expression.

Nested Narrative

A story within a story. A technique used where inner narratives are embedded inside outer, main narratives. Used in the Heart of Darkness.

New Women Literature

A late-Victorian feminist movement that featured independence and education in career-driven roles for female protagonists. Challenged traditional codes of gender, marriage and domesticity. Advocated for women suffrage.

How does Oread present objects, as example of modernism?

It presents them as specific things from the world, but moves from specifications to general descriptions of identity.

What does Heart of Darkness do, as following the theme of ‘modernism'?

It layers stories into stories in fragmented pieces, utilizing a nested narrative. Combines emotional difficulty with intellectual difficulty.

What did modernism do for the first half of the 20th century, according to its fracturing moments?

Impacted social and cultural values, questioning the soldification of England as a superpower and how art portrayed during the period expressed loss of coherence in the cultural hemisphere.

What is the popular assumption of the romantics during the Romanticism period?

The role of humans being destructive to the natural world. Relationships with individual encounters of the world in terms of both external and internal aspects of it.

Why should be mindful about sensibility, according to the Romanticism period?

It refers to emotional excess that clouds good judhment. By being mindful, we can feel for other's suffering and develop common sense by contrasting it to sentiment.

Marx

An economist and journalist who captured the idea that individuals are captured in larger forces with no control. Argues that overthrowing the higher classes will result in finding social and economic justice- striving for mass political against against mass struggle.