Literary Criticism  Fall, 2000
           essay questions

Final Exam (2): Multiple Choice 

中文姓名:                    學號:

Those with* have more than one answers.

  I New Criticism

  1. Which of the following approaches is not similar to or compatible with New Criticism? 
      formalism;  expressive school;  aesthetic criticism.  textual criticism
  2. *Which of the following are the objects of study for New Criticism?
      paradox;  textual ambiguity;  narrative voice  prosody
  3. *What view of human identity is implied in New Criticism?  Humans are
      born evil;  sharing universal values;  contradictory.  free individuals 
  4. Do you think that New Critics like to analyze translated poems?
     yes;  no;  depends on who the poet is;  cannot tell.
  5. Which of the following cannot be the short-comings of New Criticism?
     ahistorical;  privileging certain poets;  blind to the text's inconsistencies;  ignoring textual complexities
  6. "And every fair from fair sometime declines, 
    By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;"
     

    Which of the following poetic techniques is NOT used in the two lines above 
    to suggest "loss of beauty"? 
      repetition; alliteration;  personification;  iambic;
  7. Which of the following objects is NOT associated with Emily to suggest her status and
    personalities
    in "A Rose for Emily"?
      the house; an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head;  iron-gray hair;  rose
  8. * "This Is Just to Say”: What is/are the central opposition(s) in this poem?
    Breakfast vs. Dessert;  Plum vs. Icebox;  Theft vs. Love.  Daily routine vs. sensuous moment

  II. Psychoanalysis

  1. *From which of the following do we have access to the unconscious? 
    Freudian slip;  dream;  literature.  parapraxis
  2. *Why does our dream get "over-determined" by more than one incidence in our life?  Because
    the dream is hard to understand;  is disordered;  condenses many elements in our life.  
    use multiple methods to transform the latent content (our repressed desires) into acceptable manifest content.
  3.  *What,  for Freud, determines our gender (i.e. masculinity & femininity) ?  
    our genitalia;  our abilities in repressing desires;  whether we repress our incestuous desire for the parent.
    which parent we see as object of identification.
  4. *What are the other possible determinants of gender?
    dress;  eating habits;  the toys we are given.  the ads which focus on women's bodies.
  5. *In Jacqueline Rose's interesting interpretation of Peter Pan's fixation on Oedipal stage, who 
    plays the role of impotent father figure?
    Peter Pan;  Wendy's father, Mr. Darling;  Captain Hook.  Nana the dog.
  6. What theory of Freud's makes Lacan claims that our unconscious is structured like language?
    libido is destructive; our dream uses metaphor and metonymy to condense meanings;  
    desires have to be sublimated .  
    learning language is a process of socialization;  
  7. *What are the general criticisms of Freud? 
    analyzing the consequences of repressing sexual desire ;  basing his theory on Victorian nuclear family;  lack of understanding of female sexuality; reducing the mother to a passive role.
  8. *What are the images in "The Tell-Tale Heart" which are open to psychoanalytic reading? 
    the old man's eye;  the pitch-black room;  the old man's treasure.  the narrator's head and lantern
  9. * What are the images in Psycho which are symbolic of the unconscious or access to it?
    money wrapped in newspaper;  the corpse's eye socket;  the swamp.  the bathtub drain
  10. Which of the following texts does not deal with male voyeurism?  
    ㄐㄧㄢ視;  The Piano;  Psycho.  "Tell-Tale Heart"
  11. Which of the following images in "Araby" is not religious images?
    rusty bicycle-pump;  her figure defined by the light;  chalice.  "I held a florin tightly in my hand."
  12. *What could the piano key (which Flora is asked to give to Baine in The Piano) be symbolic of?
    Ada's love;  Ada's finger  Edward's castration;  music.
  III. Feminisms
  1. Which of the following words/concepts does not evidence the patriarchal order of language?
    Masculine/Feminine // Sun/Moon, Active/Passive binaries;  chairman;  human beings.  poetess.
  2. Which of the following has not been used as feminist strategies?
    feminine writing;  mimicry;  lesbianism.  faithfulness in marriage.
  3. Which of the following is not part of the French feminists' definitions of feminine writing.
    subverting phollogocentrism  writing from the body;  rational and organized.   the semiotic.
  4. Radical feminists critique the patriarchal order in its most fundamental aspects.  Which of the followoing is not their target?
    religion;  sexual politics in literature;  pornography.  job opportunities.
  5. *In the controversies between Anti-Obscenities and Anti-Censorship feminists, which of the following were reasons for the latter group to argue against censorship?
    different viewers have different interpretations;  rape in a porn film does not lead to rape;  freedom of speech.  male viewers have their right to choose what they want.   
  6. *What are the possible problems of Radical feminism?
    conceiving of biology as a fixed given;  glorify women's otherness without challenging the male/female binarism;  essentialism.  elitism.  
  7. Which of the following techniques is not used in Hsia-Yu's "Ventriloquy."
    dual identity;  two kinds of speech;  parody;  providing female space outside of marriage
  8. *Which of the following details make the story "Bluebeard's Egg" suggestive of the namesake fairytale?
    Sally's being the third wife;  Ed's going to the attic with Marilyn;  Sally's lack of confidence.  the party.   
  9. In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" he cannot hear the mermaids sing because he is too confined by social customs.  Why can Polly in I've Heard the Mermaids Singing hear the mermaids?  She
    is a social misfit;  is not afraid of expressing herself;  has fantasies.  is a photographer.
  10. *Why does the protagonist want to talk about her fantasies in "Rape Fantasies"?
    to share her dreams;  to show that she is different from her friends;  to avoid being raped.  to find company.