Essay question

1.   Define and discuss both specific setting and general setting. Consider how the settings of stories enhance the mood and affect the reader’s comprehension of those stories. Choose TWO stories for your discussion.   “Pick out some examples of language used by the author to stimulate and control the reader’s visualization of the scene.”  Quote those examples directly in your response.   25 points
2.  Discuss theme.  Choose two stories and respond to this prompt for each.  Consider:  “Does the story make a general statement about life or experience?”  Find a place in the story where the general theme is summed up, either in exposition or in the conversation of one of the characters.  Quote that part of the text in your response, and highlight how the story supports that theme through plot and/or the actions of the characters.  25 points
3.  Discuss characterization.  Choose THREE stories and respond to all the questions in this prompt for each.  “Has the author relied on your familiarity with certain scenes, characters, and situations to fill in what has been omitted from the actual text of the story?”  Point to specific moments when the author relies on archetype for story or situation.  “Can you fill in the thought processes of those characters whose thoughts are not described?”  With a first person or third person limited omniscience point of view, we don’t have the thoughts of all the characters.  How does the author “suggest” what those characters are thinking? Provide specific examples from the text where the author lets readers know what a character MAY be thinking when the narrator is NOT providing the thoughts of that character.   50 points

Choose from these stories. There are all from 110 stories.

6  “The Skye Was So Blue”               47  “The Price of Light and Air”
10  “Gelato is Gelato”                        60  “The Grief Technician”
21  “Senseless”                               103  “The Persistence of Who We Were”
23  “Grammar Questions”                 105 “A Terror for Terror”
28  “Man on the PATH”