English II Final Exam Study Guide: Content of the Exam

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***To review write out (by hand) what each category says you should know/ be able to do. Earn up to 3 points on exam.***

Literature: Know major characters, elements of plot, themes, symbols, and important quotations.

  1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  2. Characters
  • Nick Carraway- narrator and character in The Great Gatsby
  • Tom Buchanan—married to Daisy; went to Yale with Nick; athlete/brute; possessive of Daisy; East Egg
  • Daisy Buchanan—object of Gatsby’s infatuation; married to Tom; delicate
  • Myrtle Wilson—Married to George but having affair with Tom in his apartment in NYC; he treats her as an object, but she wants to improve her life through Tom’s money; run over in car driven by Daisy
  • George Wilson—Myrtle’s “average” husband; owns car garage; kills Gatsby in fury over Myrtle’s death
  • Jay Gatsby—real name is James Gatz; epitome of American Dream; obsessed with getting Daisy through $; West Egg
  • Jordan Baker—Nick’s “girlfriend”; an athletic friend of Daisy’s; “incurably dishonest”
  • Catherine—Myrtle’s sister
  • Owl Eyes—drunken man in Gatsby’s library surprised at “real” books; attends Gatsby’s funeral
  • Meyer Wolfshiem—gambler associate of Gatsby’s; Jewish; teeth as cufflinks
  • Pammy Buchanan—Tom and Daisy’s daughter
  1. Plot Triangle

Exposition

  • West Egg versus East Egg
  • Nick’s personal history (honesty/reserving judgment)
  • Foreshadowing about Gatsby’s downfall (“foul dust”)
  • Meet Tom, Daisy, and Jordan Baker

Rising Action

  • Tom has mistress (Myrtle)
  • Tom breaks Myrtle’s nose
  • Mystery surrounding Gatsby’s true identity
  • Daisy and Gatsby meeting

Climax

  • Tom meets Gatsby and they go with Nick, Daisy, and Jordan into NYC Gatsby—Gatsby asks Daisy to say she never loved Tom and she can’t; they leave and we discover there has been an accident outside of Wilson’s garage.

Falling Action

  • Daisy was driving the car that killed Myrtle
  • Tom tells George that Gatsby ran over Myrtle; George kills Gatsby and himself
  • Gatsby’s funeral—only father, Nick, and Owl Eyes attend
  • Nick and Jordan fight

Resolution

  • Nick concludes that Tom and Daisy are careless people who destroy things, and he decides to return to Minnesota to escape their greed and immorality
  • Nick reflects on Gatsby’s dream, and leaves ultimately because of the “foul dust” that happened surrounding the pursuit of the dream
  1. Themes
  2. The American Dream has become corrupted in the pursuit of wealth/materials
  3. You can’t repeat the past
  4. Unrestrained love (obsession) can have tragic consequences
  1. Symbols
  • Valley of ashes—land of ruins/waste in between the Eggs and NYC—ruined lives of those caught between wealth
  • T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes—“watch over” the valley of ashes; to George, they represent God in regards to omniscience
  • Books in the library at Gatsby’s house—Gatsby has gone to lengths to create a persona of wealth and sophistication, with “real” books in his library; may also represent the depth of Gatsby’s mysterious character, whereas other people may be more shallow/simplistic
  • Weather—correlates to the moods of characters at various times
  • Time—Gatsby believes that he can recreate the past; broken clock in Nick’s house when Gatsby reunites with Daisy; ultimately, he is unable to go back in time to change outcomes
  • Green light—symbol of Gatsby’s dream of someday having Daisy again—the gap between the past and present; green for money/envy
  • East versus West Egg= East is old money (Tom) ; West is new money (Gatsby)
  1. Important Quotations—Know speaker/ who and what is being discussed
  • “No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.” pp 6-7, Chapter 1
  • “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” p 40, Chapter 2
  • “‘Absolutely real—have pages and everything. I thought they’d be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact they’re absolutely real. Pages and—Here! Lemme show you…It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism!’” p 50, Chapter 3
  • “She was incurably dishonest...It made no difference to me. Dishonest in a woman is a thing you can never blame deeply—I was casually sorry, and then I forgot...I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.” pp 63-64, Chapter 3
  • “A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: ‘There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.’” pp 84-85, Chapter 4
  • “While the rain continued it had seemed like the murmur of their voices, rising and swelling a little, now and then, with gusts of emotion. But in the new silence I felt that silence had fallen within the house too.” p 94, Chapter 5
  • “He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in the house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.” p 96-97, Chapter 5
  • “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything…No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.” p 101, Chapter 5
  • “‘Her voice is full of money,’ he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it….High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl….” p 127, Chapter 7
  • “‘Oh, you want too much!’ she cried to Gatsby. ‘I love you now—isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.’ She began to sob helplessly. ‘I did love him once—but I loved you too.’” p 140, Chapter 7
  • “Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other…They weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale—and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.” pp 152-153, Chapter 7
  • “Standing behind him Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg which had just emerged pale and enormous from the dissolving night. ‘God sees everything,’ repeated Wilson.” p 167, Chapter 8
  • “I couldn’t forgive him or like him but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made….” pp 187-188, Chapter 9
  1. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
  2. Characters
  • Lt. Henry—American ambulance driver for the Italian army; injured; falls in love with Catherine Barkley
  • Catherine Barkley—English Nurse in Italy; fiancé died in war; falls in love with Henry; pregnant; dies in childbirth
  • Rinaldi—Henry’s friend; Italian surgeon; loves women and alcohol; becomes depressed as war continues
  • Dr. Valentini—Henry’s surgeon; epitome of Hemingway’s vision of a true “man”—competent, charming, handsome, funny
  • EttoreMoretti—Italian-American war hero who is brave but also focuses only on war and his medals/injuries
  • Miss Gage—Nurse at the hospital in Milan who is fond of Henry
  • Miss Van Campen—Head nurse at Henry’s hospital; sends him back to the front after accusing him of getting jaundice on purpose
  • The Barber—thinks that Henry is Austrian, not American, and nearly kills him with his blade
  • Crowell Rodgers—injured American soldier; was trying to take home a grenade as a souvenir when it exploded
  • Mr. Meyers—corrupt horse race gambler
  • Gino—Young, patriotic soldier
  • Bonello—ambulance driver that kills a sergeant after Henry shoots him; laughs; runs away later (ironic)
  • Aymo—Shot in the neck by his own men (Italian rear guard)
  • Piani—Ambulance driver that stays with Henry during retreat until Henry is taken by the military police
  • The Sergeants—run away from the crew when the ambulance is stuck; one is shot
  • Ralph Simmons—singer who gives Henry civilian clothes to disguise himself when he’s about to go to Stresa
  • Mr. and Mrs. Guttingen—owners of the cabin in Switzerland where Catherine and Henry stay for a while
  1. Plot—Review plot table and narrative structure notes
  1. Themes
  2. War is an atrocious waste of life
  3. Love is always surrounded by loss and hardships
  4. Reality will always overshadow fantasy/escape mechanisms
  5. Symbols
  • Officer Stars—Henry removes his stars which symbolize his position as an officer, thus creating a new “civilian” identity for himself
  • Rain—associated with death and misery; inescapable presence of death and misery
  • Hair—Catherine says that she will cut her hair short to be more like Henry (she has long hair that Henry likes to “escape” into), while she asks him to grow out a beard to avoid restlessness; represent a temporary escape from reality, and a sense of defense from the outer world
  • Riding Crop—Catherine’s inability to let go of her dead fiancé when she meets Henry
  1. Important Quotations
  • “‘This is a rotten game we play, isn’t it?’…‘You don’t have to pretend you love me. That’s over for the evening. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?’ ‘But I do love you.’ ‘Please let’s not lie when we don’t have to.’” (31)
  • “I sat up straight and as I did so something inside my head moved like the weights on a doll’s eyes and it hit me inside in back of my eyeballs. My legs felt warm and wet and my shoes were wet and warm inside. I knew that I was hit and leaned over and put my hand on my knee. My knee wasn’t there.” (55)
  • “‘You do not love Him at all?’ he asked. ‘I am afraid of Him in the night sometimes.’ ‘You should love Him.’ ‘I don’t love much.’” (72)
  • “God knows I had not wanted to fall in love with her. I had not wanted to fall in love with any one. But God knows I had.” (93)
  • “You’re my religion. You’re all I’ve got.” (116)
  • “I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it.” (126)
  • “‘He was probably a coward,’ she said. ‘He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he’s intelligent. He simply doesn’t mention them.’” (140)
  • “I am the snake. I am the snake of reason.’ ‘You’re getting it mixed. The apple was reason.’ ‘No, it was the snake.’” (170)
  • “I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.” (184-185)
  • “I killed him. I never killed anybody in this war, and all my life I’ve wanted to kill a sergeant.” (207)
  • “I looked back. Aymo lay in the mud with the angle of the embankment. He was quite small and his arms were by his side, his puttee-wrapped legs and muddy boots together, his cap over his face. He looked very dead. It was raining. I had liked him as well as any one I ever knew.” (214)
  • “The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it.” (224-225)
  • “Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligation.” (232)
  • “I had the paper but I did not read it because I did not want to read about the war. I was going to forget the war. I had made a separate peace.” (243)
  • “The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” (249)
  • “Then too you are in love. Do not forget that is a religious feeling.” (263)
  • “God please make her not die. I’ll do anything you say if you don’t let her die. You took the baby but don’t let her die. That was all right but don’t let her die. Please, please, dear God, don’t let her die.” (330)
  • “But after I had got them out and shut the door and turned off the lights it wasn’t any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.” (332)

Literary Terms: Be able to define the terms, identify when they are used, explain their purposes, and provide an example.

  1. Diction: Author’s word choice; contributes to tone of the work
  1. Imagery:A common term of variable meaning, imagery includes the "mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of literature.
  2. Metaphor: A comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another one, figuratively speaking.
  3. Simile:An analogy or comparison implied by using an adverb such as like or as, in contrast with a metaphor which figuratively makes the comparison by stating outright that one thing is another thing.
  4. Allegory:The term loosely describes any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning.
  5. Characterization:An author or poet's use of description, dialogue, dialect, and action to create in the reader an emotional or intellectual reaction to a character or to make the character more vivid and realistic.
  6. Theme:A central idea or statement that unifies and controls an entire literary work.
  7. Symbolism:Frequent use of words, places, characters, or objects that mean something beyond what they are on a literal level.
  8. Setting:The general locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which the action of a fictional or dramatic work occurs.
  9. Personification:A trope in which abstractions, animals, ideas, and inanimate objects are given human character, traits, abilities, or reactions.
  10. Repetition:the simple repeating of a word, within a sentence or a poetical line, with no particular placement of the words, in order to emphasize.
  11. Irony:An intentional gap between what is expected and what actually happens.
  12. Frame story:The result of inserting one or more small stories within the body of a larger story that encompasses the smaller ones.
  13. Dialect:The language of a particular district, class, or group of persons.
  14. Flashback:An earlier event inserted into the normal chronological order of a narrative. Often introduced as a memory or dream.
  15. Iceberg Principle: When a writer leaves out some information, yet the reader is still able to sense that information as if the writer had actually written it

“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writers is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.”

  1. Propaganda(including techniques):is any information, ideas, or rumors used to help or harm a particular group, person, movement, initiative, institution, nation, etc.
  • Word Play/ Name Calling- Using language to avoid stigma against your group, and then referring to others with negative language to dehumanize them

Examples: Aryan Brotherhood is the name a white supremacist group developed to create unity among their members; they use derogatory and slang language against non-white people

  • Symbols and Imagery- The swastika quickly became known as a Nazi symbol in the 1920s, and now is known for representing ideas of intolerance and hatred (although that was not the original meaning of the symbol).
  • Religious Authority- Use of scripture or other religious terminology to convey the idea that the group is sanctioned by God (i.e. “prophet,” “commandments,” “Truth,” etc.)
  • Scientific Legitimacy (pseudo-scientific language)- Using “scientific evidence” to borrow authority, in the way of citing studies/academic works, using scientific language, etc. Nazis claimed that Jews and other groups of people were biologically inferior to other races of people.
  • Nationalism- Use of loyalty, heritage, nobility, etc. to get people to join the cause
  • Fearmongering- Groups may present ideas that a particular group of people is a danger to society by claiming that they are linked to disease, crime, terrorism, etc.
  • Smoke and Mirror Tactics- Some groups will try to “hide” their true message behind a screen that “looks good.” For example, white supremacist groups might not claim that other people are inferior because of their race; instead, they may suggest connections to crime/disease (fearmongering) to seem more acceptable to the general public.
  • Historical Revisionism- Some people will “revise” historical events to promote their own claims about history. One significant group of revisionists are Holocaust deniers, who claim that the Holocaust was less horrific, or that it never actually happened.
  1. Euphemism:A word/phrase used in place of an unpleasant, harsh, or offensive term.
  2. Idiom:Expressions that cannot be understood by knowing the literal meaning of the words.
  3. Pun:A play on two words similar in sound but different in meaning.
  4. Foreshadowing:When an author provides clues or hints about future events in the story.
  5. Plot:
  6. Exposition—introduces the main characters/setting
  7. Conflict—an obstacle/problem that a character must overcome (typically the protagonist) in rising action
  8. Climax—the turning point of the story
  9. Resolution—see how the turning point works out; bringing the story of a close with consequences, future hints, etc.
  10. Allusion:A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification.
  11. Oxymoron:A phrase that combines two contradictory terms.
  12. Point of View:1st person – The speaker is the narrator; uses “I” or “me” or “we”

2nd person – Addresses the reader; uses “you” or “you all”