Readings Flashcards
(26 cards)
Who wrote this reading?
The Moment Before the Gun Went Off
The Moment Before the Gun Went Off - Nadine Gordimer
- White farmer accidently shoots his illegitamate black son, local community shocked he feels bad
- Set in Aparthide South Africa
- Short Story
Who wrote this reading
“What is Literature?”
Essay
“What is Literature?” – Terry Eagleton
Liturature is a social construct
- No “essance” to literature
- Changes relative to time and people reading it
Who wrote this reading?
How to Survive the Apocalypse for Native Girls
How to Survive the Apocalypse for Native Girls – Kai Minosh Pyle
Tribal politics are complicated
- Who is and is not part of the community?
- Journal-style 1st person
- Non-linear storytelling
Themes
* Colonialism
* Identity
* Change
Who wrote this reading?
A Clean Well-Lighted Place
A Clean Well-Lighted Place - Ernest Hemingway
Modernist poem
- Characters stay unnamed
- Two guys in a cafe make fun of a poor, old man
Who wrote this reading?
The Iliad, or, The Poem of Force
The Iliad, or, The Poem of Force - Simone Weil
The real hero of The Iliad is force
Who wrote this reading?
Oedipus the King
Oedipus the King – Sophocles
Ancient Greek Play
Man kills his bio dad, then marries and has children with his bio mom. Everyone tells man to stop investigating his bio dad’s murder publicly. Man does not listen. Does not a happy ending
Who wrote this reading
Sonnet 73
Sonnet 73 – William Shakespeare
English Sonnet
- Nature Imagry
- Themes about Death
Who wrote this reading?
Tell All the Truth, But Tell It Slant
Tell All the Truth, But Tell It Slant – Emily Dickenson
Short poem
- Themes of truth and the nature of reality
- Deceptivly simple
- “Dazzle gradually”, “Circut”
Who wrote this reading?
The Hollow Men
The Hollow Men - T.S. Eliot
Poem
- Scarecrow and death imagry
- Use of a broken up “Lord’s Prayer”
- Religious Imagry
- Mood: Hollowness, pointlessness
Who wrote this reading?
The Crunch
The Crunch – Charles Bukowski
Poem, broken up and unconventional
- About how society has unfair expectactions
- “people are not good to each other”
- Trying despite bad odds
Who wrote this reading?
Anon Was an Environmentalist
Anon Was an Environmentalist – Unknown
Essay
- Nature of poetic meter and music
- “… a poem acts like an organism”
Who wrote this reading?
“Image vs. Idea”
“Image vs. Idea” – Giovanni Della Volpe
Who wrote this reading?
“Introduction: Instructions on How to Becomes a General in the Disneyland Club”
How to Read Donald Duck
“Introduction: Instructions on How to Becomes a General in the Disneyland Club” – Ariel Dorfman & Arman Mattelart
Novel? A critique of the spread of American media
- Artistic colonialism
- “Children’s comics are devised by adults, whose work is determined and justified by their idea of what a child is or should be”
- “The future (the child) reaffirms the present (the adult), which, in turn, transmits the past. The apparent independence which the father benevolently bestows upon this little territory of his creation, is the very means of assuring his supremacy.”
Who wrote this reading?
“Poetry and Communism”
“Poetry and Communism” – Alan Badiou
Essay
- Communism = “Concern for what is common to all”
- Poets = Communists
- Thier domain is language, which is common to all
- Mentions a war in Spain
Who wrote this reading?
Hadda be Playin’ on the Jukebox
Hadda be Playin’ on the Jukebox – Allan Ginsberg
Poem
- “It had to be…”
- Critic of both powerhouses during the Cold war
- “It” = Power, greed, force
Who wrote this reading?
Cruel “The Money Beast”
Cruel “The Money Beast” – Sue Coe
Book/Essay
- Critique of both capitalism and the meat industry
- “Owning other beings is profitable, and owning other beings leads to disrespect and abuse, both within the industry and at the consumer leve”
Who wrote this reading?
“The Bloody Chamber”
“The Bloody Chamber” – Angela Carter
Short Story
- Young girl marries sketchy rich old man. Rich man almost imediatly tries to kill her. Awesome mom shoots him with a shotgun. Young girl marries sweet blind piano tuner instead and gives away all the sketchy man’s money.
Themes
- Gender inequality
- Greed
- Sexual Curiosity
Who wrote this reading?
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Novella
- Rasist man runs a riverboat used to exploit Africa, sometimes feels bad for the Africans, then continues to abuse and demean them. Rasist man does not notice he is racist for the entirety of the story.
- Hazy imagrey
Who wrote this reading?
The Second Coming
Poem
The Second Coming – W.B. Yeats
Poem
- Religious imagry
- Fear that what’s coming is not Jesus
Who wrote this reading?
What Were They Like?
What Were They Like? – Denise Levertov
Poem
- Effects of war on people’s culture
- Follows Vietnam
- “It was reported their singing resembled the flight of moths in moonlight. Who can say? It is silent now.”
Who wrote this reading?
The Lives of Animals
The Lives of Animals – J.M. Coetzee
Short Story????
- Famous novelist was invited to a university to give a talk on a topic of her choice. The university quickly decided they made a mistake when she talked the entire time about animal rights.
- If holocoust = animal slaughter, then animal slaughter = holocoust
- POV: 3rd person limited, Novelist’s son
Themes
- Speciesism
Who wrote this reading?
The Death of the Moth
The Death of the Moth – Virginia Woolf
Poem
- Narrator watches a moth die and ponders the meaning of life
- No difference in the significance of of human life and the moth’s life
- Enevitability of death
Who wrote this reading?
Politics and the English Language
Politics and the English Language – George Orwell
Essay
- Don’t make things sound more complicated then they are, life is hard enough as it is
- If you need to use a dictionary to understand a word, maybe don’t use it
Who wrote this reading?
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Novel
- Everyone is poor and dying and needs to move, but rich people have decided that poor people are the absolute worst and try to make life a hard as possible for them
