World Literatures in English
Final Exam, Spring 2001
Part I:
Answer 2 questions, each no more than 3 paragraphs.
I. Mapping I.  Engage yourself in a dialogue with the questions raised by a text in its specific cultural context. . .

 
  1. How is the "government" represented respectively in "The Management of Grief" and The Adjuster.  

    2.   
  2. In Abeng, on several occasions Clare drops her patois and switch to standard English.  What is the significance of this switch of linguistic codes and the use of different languages in the novel?

    3.  
  3. How is caste system and marriage treated in one of the following Indian texts (e.g. "Flute Music," Fire,  The God of Small Things[chap 2]).  

    4.  
  4. Discuss the use of a Caribbean custom (e.g. voodoo, or obiah, or Krik? Krak!) in one of the following texts ("Blossom," "Children of the Sea," Wide Sargasso Sea).

    5.    
  5. Discuss the issue of dual identity (language) in either "Tricks with Mirror" or "Imperialism of Syntax."
 
or the ways they raise the questions artistically. . .
B. Artistic Techniques
 
 
     6.  Compare and contrast the different spatial imagery in "Bright Thursdays," Wide Sargasso Sea, and "Children of the Sea."  (e.g. the protagonists' senses of the houses, the garden, the mountain and the sea and how they reflect their senses of identity.)
  
    7. Nature: Choose one text.  Discuss the symbolic meanings of Paparachi's moth in The God of Small Things, mongoose and the pig in Abeng, or butterflies in "Children of the Sea".
  
    8. Discuss the use of Biblical allusions in one of the following texts (The Adjuster, Wide Sargasso Sea, The Handmaid's Tale and "The Found Boat")
  
    9. Discuss the changes and re-definition of English language/words/sayings in either The God of Small Things  or  The Handmaid's Tale.  
    

Good luck!