Literature page 422-431 Q 1-8
434-444 Q 1-8 & 1-5
You will know how to make predictions based on the information provided in the title and the context of a text.
You will know how to explain how the choice of a narrator affects characterization and the tone, plot, and the credibility of the text.
Response: 3 paragraphs!
Can we ever really understand the complexities of the human mind?
What’s real?
What’s imaginary?
When we love is late or missing, we can conjure up the details of disaster in a few seconds and make ourselves sick with worry. Imagine, then, the extremes to which the human imagination might go if a person were threatened with imminent death. What thoughts might pass through his or her mind?
Ambrose Bierce
DOB/DOD
Give a quick description of this author
and what he did.
1) After reading the title, what predictions can you make about this story? What does the word Occurrence suggest.
2) Is Bierce trying to elicit sympathy for the condemned man or is he as neutral as the sentinels are?
3) How does the formality of the author’s style reflect his purpose in this passage?
4) How does the point of view change? What effect does this shift have on the reader?
5) When does this encounter between Farquhar, his wife, and the “gray-clad soldier” occur?
6) What two points of view does Bierce use here? How do these perspectives convey Farquhar’s altered state?
7) How much time do you think has passed since the sergeant stepped off the plank? What details support your speculation?
8) How does this description of the military formality of a firing squad differ for the one on p. 425?
9) Why does Bierce return to the objective point of view in his final sentence?
10) How does this story reflect Bierce’s scorn for sentimental illusions?
Book Questions 1-8
1) State the situation of Peyton Farquhar faces in part one.
2) Part II of the story is a flashback. List its events in chronological order. Be sure to explain who visits Peyton Farquhar and his wife. What plan did Farquhar concieve as a result of this visit?
3) Summarize in one sentence what Farquhar imagines in part III.
4) What point of view does the writer use in part III of the story, which occurs within the few seconds before Farquhar dies? Why is this point of view particularly appropriate?
5) Bierce’s style is to tell his story out of chronological order. How might the impact of the story be different if the events were revealed in order?
6) In this story the Civil War serves as a backdrop; Bierce’s main intent is to examine the psychology of someone in a life-or-death situation. What does this story imply about human psychology in the face of death?
7) Did you think the outcome of this story was credible and powerful, or did you think the surprise ending cheated the reader? Explain what you mean.
8) Philosophical approach. The critics Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren have said that Bierce’s story depends too much on a quirk of human psychology and is thus a mere”case study” that does not reveal anything important about human nature, as good fiction does. Do you agree? Explain why or why not.
A Mystery of Heroism by Stephen Crane
page 434-444 Q 1-8 and 1-5
What is the DOB/DOD of Crane?
What religion did he grow up under?
give the dates of the following writings:
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Te Open Boat
The Red Badge of Courage
How did Crane die?
Explain the verbal irony of War is Kind.
