Modernism Test Review

1. Modernism Test Review

2. Expatriates and World War I • The WWI era in America was filled with American authors who lived abroad (they were called expatriates) and wrote about America from afar. This included Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

3. Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” • O’Connor writes about how the secular (non-religious) world has lost the ability to discuss deep subjects with any real meaning

4. Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” • Hemingway makes great use of dialogue, but uses very little description • Heavy symbolism. Example: the setting of the train station symbolizes different paths and separation • Subtext: Hemingway includes most of the meaning of the story in what is not said (ex: the protagonists are talking about an abortion, but never mention it by name; it has to be understood by the reader)

5. Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory” • The theme of the poem could be the empty happiness that money provides, or hidden struggles that unlikely people face • People still chase Cory’s money today, despite this warning

6. William Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily” • The protagonist, Emily Grierson, symbolizes the “Old South” • Emily’s refusal to let go of Homer Barron symbolizes the Old South’s refusal to let go of bad parts of the past

7. Langston Hughes’s “Harlem” • Hughes examines the double impact of the Great Depression and racial discrimination in his poem • Hughes was a leader of the Harlem Renaissance

8. Cold Read • As always, there will be a cold read on the test

9. Modernism vs. Realism • The Moderns used symbolism heavily, and were okay with strange occurrences. The realists avoided such occurrences and tried to “tell it like it is.”

10. Motif • A pattern that continues to emerge continuously in a story is a motif. • Example: the green light and the color of “pale gold” in The Great Gatsby

11. Syntax • Syntax is the order of words

12. Analogy • Any comparison is an analogy • Thus, any simile or metaphor is an analogy

13. Symbolism in The Great Gatsby: It’s Heavy • The Green Light: The American Dream • Pale Gold: Money • What everyone is searching for: a return to the past that was “safe” and void of danger, fear, and corruption

14. Fragments • Fragments are incomplete sentences that are easily identified with 3 quick tests: • Does it have a subject? • Does it have a verb? • Does it express a complete thought?

15. Examples of Fragments • Is a big bird. (No subject; what is a big bird?) • The condor. (No verb; the condor what?) • The condor that flies over there. (Not a complete thought; the condor that flies over there does what?)

16. Predicates • A predicate is a part of a sentence that is either a verb or a phrase that contains a verb. • A predicate can be one word or a phrase (several words). • Example: Let’s eat. • Example: Let’s go to dinner. • Both of these are predicates.

17. Clauses • When you join subjects and predicates together, they create “clauses” • There are 2 kinds of clauses: independent and dependent • Independent clauses can stand on their own. Example: “It will rain today.” • Dependent clauses cannot stand on their own: “Because it will rain.” This is not a complete sentence; it is a fragment.

18. Clauses (continued) • Independent clauses cannot be joined by a comma or a space. This is a run-on sentence or, if a comma is used, a comma splice. • Example: It will rain today, I like the rain. • Dependent clauses can be joined by a comma. • Example: It will rain today, if the weather report is to be believed.

19. Appositives • An appositive is a noun phrase that serves to identify another noun • Example: “My favorite color, blue, is the color of my car.” • Example: “My neighbor, Sarah, is good at soccer.”

20. Sentences • Sentences must have subjects and predicates/verbs in order to be complete sentences.

21. When Parts of Speech Collide • Sometimes parts of speech merge and create new parts of speech, like the participle and the gerund.

22. Participles • A participle is a verb that also functions as an adjective. • Example: The eating lion is larger than the sleeping one. • Example: The scared boy is running away.

23. Gerund • A gerund is a verb that can function as a noun. • Example: “Eating” is both an action and a thing. So is swimming, running, chewing, looking, etc.

24. Active vs. Passive Voice • Active voice is the clearer of the two voices in which to write; it places the subject first and the verb second. • Example: “Andy kicked the ball.” • Passive voice is often used in scientific literature to objectively talk about subjects. It can be unintentionally confusing and sometimes even hides the subject completely. • Example: “The ball was kicked.”