African-American Literature in General
• What does the flight motif normally represent in African-American literature? Where did it begin?
• Who coined the term "double consciousness," and what does it mean?
• Who claimed that all art is propaganda? How does that pertain to African-American literature?
• What characteristics of a blues sensibility did I review in class? How does Baldwin's account of the blues in "Sonny's Blues" differ from that idea?
African-American Poetry
• What is a hermeneutic process? How does it pertain to understanding poetry?
• How does Langston Hughes display his double consciousness in "I, Too"?
• In "Theme for English B," how does Langston Hughes explore identities for both black and white people in America?
• Where is Yusef Komunyakaa's "Facing It" set?
• How is race an issue in Komunyakaa's "Facing It"?
• How does Komunyakaa describe the effects of his past experiences on his present understanding in "Facing It"?
Baldwin
• What families does Baldwin depict in "Sonny's Blues," and what do we learn about the members of each of them?
• How does Baldwin regard religion? What philosophy did he advocate rather than religious faith? Where does suggests of that faith appear in his story?
• Where & how does Baldwin try to adopt a jazz motif in the way her narrates "Sonny's Blues"?
• What kinds of darkness does Baldwin describe in "Sonny's Blues"?
• What explanation about the meaning of blues music, in particular, and art, in general, does the narrator reach at the end of the story? (This is an important question.)
• What does Baldwin's story reveal about the costs and benefits of being an artist?
• How does Baldwin's portrayal of the blues compare or contrast with the ideas about the blues that we covered in class?
• In "Sonny's Blues," how and where does Baldwin portray religion? How does religion compare or contrast with art?
Damballah
• How does Widemena employ the following conventions of African-American literature appear in Damballah: the oral tradition, double consciousness, and the flight motif? The flight motif is particularly important.
• What does Wideman mean in "To Robby" when he claims that stories are letters and calls a watermelon a letter?
• What role does story-telling play in this family? Who are the primary story-tellers in it?
• What does "home" refer to in the book? What would it mean for "Down Home" to be "everywhere we've never been, the rural South, the old days, slavery, Africa," as Wideman writes in "To Robby"?
• How do men and women in the story perpetuate behaviors of their fathers and mothers? Which characters break from those family traditions of conduct?
• Know the prominent members of the family: John French, Freeda French, Lizabeth French, Hazel, Aunt May, Edgar Lawson, John Lawson, Tommy Lawson, Shirley, Sybela Owens, and Charlie Bell.
• Who is Strayhorn?
• What contrast do John & Tommy Lawson represent?
• How does Tommy's relationship with his mother develop or deteriorate?
• What does the closing story reveal about the founding of Homewood?
• How do the family structures develop throughout the stories we read? What do we learn about the ways that the males and females, in particular, have developed from generation to generation?
• Who is Orion? What happens to him in the first story? What abilities would he have learned in his homeland but not in America? What abilities from his homeland does he retain in America? How do the Americans around Orion regard him? How does he teach something to the boy watching him?
• Who or what is to blame for the conditions this African-American family in Homewood faces according to the resolution of the stories we read in this text?
• What problems with reason and language does Wideman reveal over the course of these stories?
"Daddy Garbage"
• What are the major events in this story? How are they related?
• Who is Strayhorn? What does Freeda French think of him?
• How do John French's reflections on what makes sense designate a condition facing African-Americans in general during the time when the story was set?
"Lizabeth: The Caterpillar Story"
• How do Freeda and Lizabeth recall saving John French?
• What did John French do to try to save his daughter?
• What does Freeda find under the refrigerator, and how does she respond to it?
• What does Lizabeth learn to do to her identity in this story? Why is that frightening in one way yet advantageous in another?
"Hazel"
• What does "it" refer to when the story refers to "the day it happened"?
• How does the first description of Hazel's mother, Gaybrella, characterize her? What later evidence in the story reinforces or troubles that initial picture of her that the story provides?
• What had death been for Hazel before "the day it happened"? This issue of what death had been for her appears several times in the story.
• What sort of image of John French does Hazel have?
• What was Gaybrella's opinion of Bess?
• Why does Hazel associate Faun with the wind
"The Chinaman"
• How did May save Freeda's firstborn child? How does the narrator seem to regard that story? How can you tell?
• Who was the narrator of this story? Why did the speaker finally need to talk about Freeda? What purpose does story-telling seem to provide for him?
• How does this story address religious faith?
"The Watermelon Story"
• Who is the audience of both stories?
• What kind of man was Mr. Norris? How would you characterize him?
• Why does the teller of Rebecca and Isaac's story claim it doesn't matter whether that story took place in Africa or "Georgy"? How could the two be the same?
• Where is the story about Rebecca and Isaac from, and what does that source reveal about the person who tells it?
• Where and how does religious faith factor into this story?
"Tommy"
• What goes wrong during the robbery that Tommy and his friends attempt?
• What images of flight appear in the story?
• What evidence from Tommy's past reveals what kind of person he had been?
• What image of John does Tommy have?
• What gave Tommy the idea that there were better possibilities for life than he had in Homewood?
"Solitary"
• How does the narrator describe prison? How do her visits there affect Lizabeth?
• How does Tommy change in jail? Whom does he hold responsible for his condition?
• How does Lizabeth's visit with Tommy affect her?
• What does Lizabeth have difficulty trusting at the end of the story? How does that experience relate to the entire collection's exploration of what "sense" is?
"The Beginnings of Homewood"
• What two crimes does the narrator try to connect in this story? Why is that a challenge?
• What is Aunt May's importance in this story?
• Where does this story indicate responsibility lies for Tommy, in particular, and the difficulties African-Americans faced in Homewood (or elsewhere), in general?
• What is the significance of the closing news about the Supreme Court?
General on Damballah
• Which characters seem to represent John Edgar Wideman and his own brother? How can we tell?
• How does Wideman present religious faith? Which characters are devout, and how does Wideman portray them?
• Know the answers for the group work questions pertaining to "Hazel," "The Chinaman," and "The Watermelon Story." "The Love Songs of Reba Love Jackson will not be on the exam.
Women's Poetry
• How and where does Silvia Plath incorporate imagery from religion and the Holocaust into "Lady Lazarus"?
• How does Plath characterize her relationship with her audience in "Lady Lazarus"?
• What personal experiences does Plath share in that poem?
• Who is Plath's enemy in this poem?
• On what kind of note does Plath close the poem?
• In "Rites of Passage," how does Sharon Olds describe her son's birthday party?
• In "Sex without Love," how does Olds employ religious terms to comment on the people she designates in her title? What is Olds' opinion of those people, and what evidence in the poem illustrates that opinion?