Honors Modern Fiction / Mrs. Walsh

June 2015

Final Review Sheet – Period 6

The final will consist of three (3) sections:

Essay ISynthesis50 points

Essay IIAnalysis50 points

Works Considered:

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Shrek

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

As I Lay Dying

The Lord of the Rings

Slaughterhouse-Five

The Stranger

City of Glass

The Matrix

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HELPFUL HINTS: You should use quizzes, tests, worksheets/study guides, and notes as study aides. All PowerPoints are online for your review.Review major concepts and ideas that we discussed in class, as well as significant characters, themes, motifs, etc.

PHILOSOPHIES/IDEAS/TERMS: *You should know what each terms means, of course, but MOST IMPORTANTLY, you should be able to APPLY the terms to the literature and film! In other words, I expect to see some of these terms correctly applied in your responses.

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  • Breakdown between high and low cultural forms
  • Comics terminology (bleed, gutter, closure, types of transitions, types of text-image relationships)
  • Disorientation of the reader/viewer/modern human being
  • Self-reflexivity
  • Focus upon the subjective/multiple truths/multiple subjectivities
  • Fragmentation/fragmented representation
  • Identity confusion

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  • Irony/parody/playfulness/silliness
  • Isolation/alienation/abandonment/disillusionment
  • Language as unreliable and non-communicative or confusing
  • Modern despair
  • Non-chronological narrative
  • Nostalgia
  • Paranoia
  • Simulacra/signifier-signified break
  • The devastation caused by war
  • The Freudian psychoanalytic lens:

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  • Id, Ego, Superego
  • Repression, abreaction
  • Manifest content, latent content
  • Phallic and yonic imagery
  • The psychosexual stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital)

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  • The Jungian archetypal lens:
  • Archetypes (Terrible and Good Mother, Child, Senex, Shadow, Villain, Hero, Tragic Hero, Anti-Hero, Wasteland / Fisher King)
  • Eucatastrophe
  • The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (incl. existentialism, Master Soul, Slave Soul, passive versus active nihilism)

Essay I: Synthesis (50 points)

In a well-constructed and thoughtful/thought-provoking essay, explore the topic stated below. Select and discuss three titles from the following list---At least two (2) must be works of literature, as opposed to film:

Shrek

Charlie and the Chocolate FactoryRoald Dahl

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s StoneJ.K. Rowling

As I Lay DyingWilliam Faulkner

The Lord of the Rings (film version)J.R.R. Tolkien

The Stranger Albert Camus

Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut

City of GlassPaul Auster

The Matrix (film)The Wachowski Brothers

TOPIC:

In Brave Companions, David McCullough states, “The evil of technology was not technology itself…not in airplanes or the myriad contrivances of modern technical ingenuity, but in the extent to which they can distance us from our better moral nature, or sense of personal accountability.” Many of the literary works we’ve looked at in modern fiction engage the concept of technology as harmful or destructive to individual morality and/or to the cohesiveness of civilization.

In a well-focused and coherently organized essay, choose three (3) different works that engage the concept of technology as morally or ethically destructive. DO NOT simply identify harmful technologies! Rather, discuss their moral/ethical implications for society. Provide specific examples of each author’s philosophy and explain how these examples add to the author’s purpose in the novel. Try to use literary terminology to frame your arguments, whenever possible.

In your conclusion, consider what each work suggests/prophesizes about the future of Western Civilization.

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