Liteture Assignment A&P is a classic coming of age tale in which the protagonist-Sammy, English homework help
Directions: Choose 3 out of the following 6 quotations from short stories we have read in this course. For each of the 3 quotations you choose, explain the significance of the quote to the overall theme of the story. Your responses should take the form of a short-answer essay (at least two paragraphs). Partial credit will be given, with 33 points awarded for complete and detailed responses that are well written and use evidence from the text. When explaining the significance of the quotation, go further than just explaining what is happening in the quotation. Explain what is happening AND what this means in terms of the rest of the story.
Number your responses according to the numbers on this exam sheet. Responses can be single-spaced. Submit all three responses as one Word document by 6/18 using the link provided in the Week 4 Materials.
Good luck!
#1 John Updike, “A&P”
“Looking back at the big windows, over the bags of peat moss and aluminum lawn furniture stacked on the pavement, I could see Lengel in my place in the slot, checking the sheep through. His face was dark gray and his back stiff, as if he’d just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.”
#2 Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour”
“She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.”
#3 Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants”
“ ‘I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to.’
‘And if I do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?’
‘I love you now. You know I love you.’
‘I know. But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?’”
#4 Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
“His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother’s head cleared for an instant. She saw the man’s face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, ‘Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!’ She reached out and touched him on the shoulder.”
#5 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”
“I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.”
#6 Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”
“Those consolation miracles, which were more like mocking fun, had already ruined the angel’s reputation when the woman who had been changed into a spider finally crushed him completely.”
