Authors and Readings
Robert Lewis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
A) Is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a story about the dangers of repression? What does it tell us about Victorian convention and the double life?
B) How does Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde define male society? What role do secrets play? Is there a male code of honor here? Why does Utterson say that he "incline[s] to Cain's heresy"?
C) Using Freud's model of the id, ego, and superego, discuss the character of Jekyll/Hyde.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
A) What is the purpose of Shelley's irony when Walton recognizes he has found the friend he is looking for only to watch him die?
B) Dr. Frankenstein finds himself unable to "mother" the being he creates. Why does Shelley characterize Victor in this way? What does this choice say about the role of women during Shelley's era? Discuss the significance of parent-child relationships and birth references throughout the novel.
C) Dreams and nightmares play a recurrent role throughout Shelley's novel. Trace the use of dreams throughout the book, with emphasis on how they relate to changes in Victor's character.
D) Ice is a prevalent image and an integral plot device in Shelley's Frankenstein. How is it appropriate that the novel ends in ice? What is the symbolism of ice for the characters and the story?
Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
A) What significance does the title of The Importance of Being Earnest have to the play's themes?
B) How does the play undermine Victorian social conventions? Pay close attention to the use of wordplay, paradox, and satire.
C) In the Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde asserts that "It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors." Evaluate this statement in relation to The Importance of Being Earnest.
William Butler Yeats's "Adam's Curse"
A) Why is Adam's curse not Eve's curse? How does Adam's curse, as described, affect women?
B) What do you think the poet means when he asserts (indirectly) that scrubbing pavements (woman's work) or breaking stones (for roads) is not as difficult as writing poetry?
William Butler Yeats's "Leda and the Swan"
A) Keeping in mind that the poem is based upon a Greek myth, what is the message of the poem? (individual interpretation with textual evidence)
B) How does Leda's rape mark a turning point in history? Consider the Greek roots of the poem as well as the age in which Yeats is writing.
Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall"
(keep in mind the story is written in stream-ofconsciousness narration as an interior monologue; a meditation on realism and modernism)
A) What does the mark on the wall mean? Consider both the physical mark and the metaphorical mark.
B) What does Woolf think that "the novelists [of the] future" will write about? Why does she think that they will leave "the description of reality more and more out of their stories"?
T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
A) The speaker (Prufrock) compares the sunset to a "patient etherised upon a table." Why do you suppose Prufrock would compare a sunset to some hospital patient who has been anesthetized and is waiting for an operation? How does this metaphor extend throughout the poem?
B) After a fifth stanza that flashes back to the room of artsy women, the sixth stanza has Prufrock asking, "Do I dare?" and "Do I dare?" What is that Prufrock is daring himself to do? Why is he so frightened about that room full of brainy women discussing art?
C) Prufrock imagines himself under the water with the mermaids in "chambers of the sea." What happens at the end though when he hears the conversation of human voices around him that awakens him from his daydream?
Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight"
A) Dylan Thomas advises his readers to "rage against the dying of the light." If he were alive today, what would he say about assisted suicide and euthanasia? Use evidence from the poem to support your answer.
B) According to the speaker, how should a person face death? Explain your answer in detail.
Salman Rushdie's "The Prophet's Hair"
A) How does the use of satire in "The Prophet's Hair" affect your understanding of the story? Is there anything in it that is not satirical? Which characters and situations come under the harshest treatment?
B) What is the story's attitude toward the religious relic? Why does the relic cause such mayhem in Hashim's Life? Why does it destroy Sheikh Sín and cure his wife and children of their afflictions?
C) Why does Hashim's religious zeal lead to such violence and destruction? What is the story saying about Islam and the modern secular family?
Zadie Smith's "The Waiter's Wife"
A) Why does Samad wish that he could wear a sign around his neck that reads: "I AM NOT A WAITER. THAT IS, I AM A WAITER, BUT NOT JUST A WAITER"? What does this tell us about Samad, his past, and his adjustment to life in London?
B) At one point Samad and Alsana have an energetic argument during which Alsana breaks dishes and Samad pulls food out of the freezer. What do we learn about each of these characters during this scene, especially in regard to gender roles and expectations?
C) How do Alsana's and Neena's views on marriage clash? What do these views have to do with cultural differences between West and East? What do they have to do with feminist concepts of the 1970s?
Attachment:- Survey of British Literature.rar