short story exam 2 – Flashcards

a critical examination of society and culture, to the intersection of race, law, and power Racism is a normal part of American society and has been so throughout our history Racism is not limited to discrete acts of overt discrimination or violence against minorities, but is so interwoven into the fabric of our lives as to be often unrecognizable Racism must be understood in social/historical context, not as isolated actions but as a pattern of institutions and assumptions American society is characterized by institutionalized racism: institutions set up to promote a given racial hierarchy

Understands literary texts according to their racial contexts, recognizing U.S. literature as emerging out of a sociological, political, and cultural situation marked by racial oppression and marginalization Celebrates minority writing, such as the aesthetics of distinctly black culture (for example: jazz) Examines white writing in racist countries as it illuminates the nature of the oppression of minorities Attempts to theorize and understand what ''race'' is, and how it is understood and represented in literature

Critical race theory double Consciousness

Its is a peculiar sensation, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness and american, a negro; two souls two thoughts two unreconciled striving, two warring ideals in one dark body

Critical race theory Africanism

The imagined image of blackness rather than an accurate representation of African peoples by and for white writers in order to construct white superiority at the cost of black humanity and agency

is a term for societal privileges that benefit white people beyond what is commonly experienced by non-white people under the same social, political, or economic circumstances.

Is an intellectual discourse that holds together a set of philosophies, political, sciences, literature's, and films . These discourses are reactions to the cultural legacy of colonialism.

Deals with literature produced in countries that once were colonies or countries still in colonial arraignments also with literature written in colonial countries and by their citizens that has colonized people as it subject matter

This criticism looks at issues of power economics, politics, religion, and culture and how these elements work in relation to colonial hegemony, focusing on how the western colonizers controlled those they colonized

Edward Said Wole Soyinka Homi Bhabha Salman Rushdie Frantz Fanon Jamaica Kincaid Gayatri Spivak Chinua Achebe

Postcolonialism book Orientalism describes the discourse about the east constructed by the west. He argues that European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself against the orient, which was characterized as exotic, uncivilized, and inferior.

A group of nations or people ruled over by an emperor, empress or other powerful sovereign

any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their homelands being dispersed throughout other parts of the world

the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing emphasis on European concerns, culture and values at the expense of those of other cultures.

lack of identification with some part of one's community, differentness, otherness

referring to the integration of cultural signs and practices from the colonizing and colonized cultures

Marxism theory 1818-1883

its all about money

Have money well off

have no money poor

societies are always made from two parts. the economy (the means of production is the base) the superstructure (all the other parts of society- culture, the state, education The economic base determines the superstructure shapes

Focuses on the representation of class distinctions and class conflict in literature focuses more on social and political elements than artistic (aesthetic) elements of a text

Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are kept so In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values All of western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has the ultimate goal of changing the world by prompting gender equality

Feminist theory the second sex 1949 Argues that there is no natural distinction between the sexes and that woman is a social construction "one is born, but rather becomes a woman"

femenist theory a room of one's own reflects on the relationship between women and fiction making the argument that for woman to be a good writer she must have social and economic freedom

To uncover and develop a female tradition of writing to examine representations of women in literature to examine and challenge patriarchal roles to challenge the view of woman as "other" to analyze language as a tool of gender construction to question the neutrality of mainstream interpretation

is a term for social, economic, and political advantages or rights that are made available to men solely on the basis of their sex. A man's access to these benefits may also depend on other characteristics such as race, sexual orientation and social class.

a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others.

is the ability for a person, or agent, to act for herself or himself. A person who is not allowed to act for her/himself is lacking in agency, or is said to have been denied agency.

Queer theorists examine how traditional definitions of gender identity (masculine vs. feminine) and sexuality (heterosexual vs. homosexual) break down, overlap, misrepresent, or do not adequately explain the dynamic range of human sexuality in a text

Postructuralism, gay and lesbian studies, feminism

Michael foucault, Judith Butler, Eve Sedwick

Queer theory is a poststructural mode of criticism heavily influenced by deconstruction For that reason, queer theorists are often interested in instability and in breaking binaries to investigate what lies between them Queer theorists reject the idea of a stable, essential identity and study identity as socially constructed

Queer theory, influenced by gay/lesbian studies, examines non-straight experience and non-straight readings of texts It is not simply gay/lesbian studies, however The binary between straight/gay and gay/lesbian is problematic for queer theorists, who examine sexual identity as fluid and changeable rather than rigid and fixed

Queer theory is often considered post-feminist Queer theorists criticize feminism's tendency to posit a male/female or man/woman binary, to assume that gender is essential, and to ignore sexual orientation

Founder of queer theory in her book gender trouble she argues that gender is not an essential part of a person, rather gender is performative she argues that all sex is gender

founder of queer theory her book epistemology of the closet argues that gender and sexuality are distinct in between men book she identifies a continuum between homosociality and homosexuality which for men is broken

a word used to refer to institutionalized discrimination against homosexuality and the privileging of heterosexuality

a word coined by author Adrienne rich to describe the enormous pressure to be heterosexual place on young people by family, school, church, and all forms of the media

the assumption often unconscious that heterosexuality is the universal norm by which everyone's experience can be understood

an inclusive term that offers a collective identity to all non straight individuals

Queer theorists attempt to determine what might constitute gay poetics or a way of writing that is uniquely gay They try to establish a gay literary tradition and decide what writers and works belong to that tradition They try to rediscover past gay writers whose works had been distorted or suppressed They examine the ways in which heterosexual texts can have a homoerotic dimension They analyze how gay characters are portrayed in both gay and heterosexual texts Finally, they identify and correct heterosexist interpretations of literature

Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo

P. burke-A highly malformed girl who attempts suicide in the beginning of the story. When recovering in the hospital, she is given an opportunity by GTX to cast her ugly self and become a "god" in society. Delphi- (P. Burke) A Remote that is controlled by P. Burke that becomes a celebrity to the outside world. She is basically the perfect human, genetically modified for the purpose of advertising for company products. Paul- The son of high ranking company manager who becomes Delphi's lover later in the story. The climax of the story is when Paul brakes into the room and sees her all plugged into the machine and he unplugs all the wires The beginning of the story she tries to commit suicide but is given a chance to be able to cast her ugly self and become a god. The end of story ends as Paul ends up killing P. Burke as well Delphi . he stays next to Delphi until she dies. his very furious the setting of story takes place in the future

the story is set in the future where everything is controlled by society P. burke a deformed woman is controlling Delphi from a remote. paul falls in love with Delphi finds out she is being controlled brakes into the lab where p. burke is and plugs out the wires and kills her and Delphi.

Miss Moore takes sylvia, sugar, and bunch of other children to FAO Schwarz to see how the "other half" lives. Sylvia is proud and doesn't like to think that she lives in the ghetto or is poor and feels betrayed when Sugar admits to Miss Moore that she sees the difference in life styles. The characters in the story is Sylvia who is the main characters, shes proud and doesn't likes to think that she lives in the ghetto or that shes poor. At the end of the story she say nobody is gona beat me at nutthin. Other characters are sugar her couzin, Mercedes, junebug, rosie giraffe, big buut , and flyboy. The beginning of the story begins as Sylvia talks about the new black lady that moved into the neighborhood which is Miss Moore and how they hated her and how Miss Moore takes them on a field trip to F.A.O Schwarz. this story goes under Marxism . Sylvia's chance to witness the vast disparity between rich and poor seems to inspire her to work harder; at the end, she thinks to herself that "ain't nobody gonna beat me at nuthin" (96). In other words, the injustice has helped her focus her anger. Bambara points out that economic disparities exist even within the narrator's own group of friends. you can see that Mercedes is well off because she says shes gona back to buy it with her birthday money . Flyboy is homeless and sugar and Sylvia are in the middle.

The story is told in first person by the "Mama", an African American woman living in the Deep South with one of her two daughters. The story humorously illustrates the differences between Mrs. Johnson and her shy younger daughter Maggie, who both still adhere to traditional black culture in the rural South, and her educated, successful daughter Dee, or "Wangero" as she prefers to be called, who scorns her immediate roots in favor of a pretentious "native African" identity. this story best fits under Post Colonialism tumultuous time when many African Americans were struggling to redefine and seize control of their social, cultural, and political identity in American society. bonds between women of different generations and their enduring legacy, as symbolized in the quilts they fashion together that's a symbol in the story . a theme in the story is the meaning of heritage and the division of power and education. mama has no education and dee went to school and learned. The beginning of story begins as mama and Maggie waits for dee to come home and she mama describes herself . The end of story mama gives Maggie the quilts and as she desicibes she felt like she was in church . dee than puts her glasses on and tells Maggie you ought to try to make something out of yourself and than she leaves and than mama and Maggie just chilled in the yard until it was time to go inside .

Cultures" this is the perfect post-civil rights era negro! he exists in what a smarter person than i might call an asignifying oppositional relation to white expectations, he enjoys playing jazz, when a group of frat guys ask him to play Dixieland he does just to spite them. This story fits under Critical race theory . The beginning of story begins as he plays the Dixie song at the club where the kids told him to play it and he sang it like he meant what he sang and the kids left the club. at the end of the story many black people began to drive their trucks with the confederate flag on the back. The guys name is Daniel Barkley his friend was sarah. there was racism throughtout story as barb and travis showed it a lot . Barb staring at daniels house and travis asking him if he wants him to take down the confederate flag down

native American guys moves to the urban where he lives with a white girlfriend doesn't know what his cultural identity doesn't know where he wants to go in life, many stereotypes and racism in the story when the cop stops him because of his color and at the gas station when the man keeps asking him questions. the setting of the story is in Seattle the urban or Spokane reservation or at the 7-eleven. the beginning of story mostly takes place in the 7-eleven where he noticed the cashier was frightened of him and his dark color.

narrator is sick and is put in a room where her husband did not let her make the choice because she was sick. he is ignorant and portrayed as the evil villain. This story is best under feminism . This story is told in a era where women did not have to power to make their own decisions in a marriage or in general. The character are john and his sister jennie and the narrator who is sick . One of the themes in this story is the subordination of women in marriage. The story reveals that this gender division had the effect of keeping women in a childish state of ignorance and preventing their full development. John's assumption of his own superior wisdom and maturity leads him to misjudge, patronize, and dominate his wife, all in the name of "helping" her. a symbol in the story is the wallpaper that she must interpret. By the end, the narrator is hopelessly insane, convinced that there are many creeping women around and that she herself has come out of the wallpaper—that she herself is the trapped woman. She creeps endlessly around the room, smudging the wallpaper as she goes. When John breaks into the locked room and sees the full horror of the situation, he faints in the doorway, so that the narrator has "to creep over him every time!" Plot Summary: The story details the unreliable narrator's descent into madness. Her antagonist husband, John, believes that it is in the narrator's best interest to go on a rest cure after the birth of their child. The family goes to spend the summer at a colonial mansion that has, in the narrator's words, "something queer about it." She is confined to an upstairs room that she assumes was once a nursery, as the windows are barred, the wallpaper has been torn, and the floor is scratched. However, she comes to suspect that another woman was once confined here against her will. The reader is left unsure as to whether the damage she describes in the room is in fact being done by the narrator herself rather than by previous occupants - at one point she bites the wooden bedhead - and the bars may have been placed on the windows by her own husband as a precaution. The narrator devotes many journal entries to obsessively describing the wallpaper in the room—its "yellow" smell, its "breakneck" pattern, the various missing patches, and the way it leaves yellow smears on the skin and clothing of anyone who touches it. She describes how the longer one stays in the bedroom, the more the wallpaper appears to mutate and change, especially in the moonlight. With no stimuli other than the wallpaper, the pattern and designs become increasingly intriguing to the narrator. She soon begins to see a figure in the design and eventually comes to believe that a woman is creeping on all fours behind the pattern. Believing that she must try to free the woman in the wallpaper, the narrator begins to strip the remaining paper off the wall. On the last day of summer, the narrator locks herself in her room in order to strip the remains of the wallpaper. When John arrives home, she refuses to unlock the door. When he returns with the key, he finds her creeping around the room, circling the walls and touching the wallpaper. She exclaims, "I've got out at last," and her husband faints as she continues to circle the room, stepping over his inert body each time she passes. There are various interpretations of the ending of the short story, some believing the narrator has killed her husband, and it is his corpse she is crawling over.

white privilege

heterosexim

proletariat and bourgeosie

Diaspora

patriarchy

Marianne main character of the story describes as a strong elegant boy rather than a seventeen year old French girl. Kate the narrator writes this story as femenism try to say that woman are just as strong as men She was described as unlike the other girls in the town and she was different (not just by her looks but by her actions throughout the story) than an average girl in Saint Philippe still liked how very independent she was and she was very kind to her father. Her relationship with her father was somewhat a minor detail but it was very cute and I really liked their connection and how she obeyed her father by staying with him until his last breath. She kind of shocked me in the end. I assumed she would go to France or England or Spain. I did not think she would go with Captain Vaudry but I thought she would have went with her friend Jacques or another family friend. Alexis Vaudry guy who loves her jackes her friend

Plot Summary: Alvin and his mother make a gumbo before a few family friends come over for dinner. Mama is teaching Alvin the traditions his Gramma used when making gumbo. Some of the traditions included each person bringing their own spice to put in the gumbo and using leftovers from the previous week. Mama reveals the cook has control of the kitchen and can do whatever they want to modify the recipe. Alvin is angered when Mama takes down his picture from a gay pride parade that used to hang on the mantle. The falling resolution of the story is when Alvin cuts up the picture of himself and uses it as his "spice". Main Characters: Mama- Alvin's mom, cooks gumbo throughout the story and teaches Alvin the traditions from his Gramma Alvin- narrator of the story, he is gay and his family friends are unaware Cleve- met Mama in college and is coming over for dinner Yvonne- Cleve's wife, Cleve and Yvonne encourage Alvin and Angela getting together Angela- Cleve and Yvonne's daughter, has a crush on Alvin

Plot Summary: Calliope/Cal has a crush on her friend, The Object. One summer night, she goes "all the way" with the object's brother Jerome and dislikes her experience. Another night, Cal experiments with the object and with her sexuality as well. The two don't speak of the event until they start to make out several days later. Jerome makes a rude comment to the two girls when he sees they are cuddling together and Cal runs away. She runs into a tractor and later wakes up in the object's lap. This short story is Calliope's experience as a hermaphrodite.

Plot Summary: Delia is a washerwoman who works long hours in a small Central Florida village. Her husband Sykes does not work, yet he resents that Delia cleans "white folks'" clothes in their home. A practical joker, Sykes scares his wife of fifteen years by using her fear of snakes. The marriage is an abusive one, ever since Sykes began beating Delia two months after marrying. Observers in the town remark how the once-beautiful Delia has lost her shine because of her abusive husband. With that said, Delia has come to the conclusion that she does not need Sykes nor his abuse, particularly considering it is her wages that paid for their home. Tired of Delia and seeking out freedom with his "portly" mistress Bertha, Sykes hatches a plan to poison Delia by planting a rattlesnake in her washing clothes. In a bit of karmic fate, however, it is Sykes who is poisoned by the rattlesnake, fatally, in the neck. In response, Delia sits meditatively below a chinaberry tree waiting for her husband to expire, and ignoring his pleas for aid. Major Characters: Sykes: a stereotypical abusive husband. He physically and mentally abuses Delia, takes her income while failing to make his own, and has an affair on the side. (antagonist) Delia: an abused wife and her jaded view of Sykes and his mistreatment of her grows as the story progresses. Delia comes to feel the same way about her marriage as Sykes does: that the relationship has run its course. (protagonist) feminism

Plot Summary: The story tells about an Algerian family, who under the colonialism was obliged to leave Algeria and to refuge in Tunis. This story is very straightforward in narration and talks about the colonial period in Algeria. In Algeria, the family was wealthy. The mother is responsible to go to the market, maybe because the financial situation of the father affects him emotionally. She recognizes this is a change in gender roles. The father is the one who talks to the brothers when there is a special family event. In Tunis, the family is poor. The brother is the one who supposed to talk to Aicha about the marriage. The Tunisian don't know how to take care of death. Concerning Aicha, she is divorced and lost her two children. She has no ambition, still thinking about her children refuse to get married. For the family, it's essential that Aicha get married because, the divorce is shameful. A death happens among Ismailien family, their young son died, the same day when women come to ask Aicha for marriage. The author juxtaposed this two events maybe to give Aicha an excuse (she didn't forget her children yet) not to get married. Actually, this is a missed opportunity since Aicha could build a new family and have new children. "There is no exile" meaning that, ever in Algeria the original country or Tunisia the host country both are an exile place. Actually Aicha suffered the emotional and physiological exile; by refusing to get married she kept herself a prisoner of the past.