A Wonderful Life
American Dreaming
Themes, Terms, & Topics
Poetic Shmoetic
Random
100
This African-American poet spoke multiple languages and had traveled to such places as Africa and France.
Who is Langston Hughes?
100
This character so failed at achieving the American Dream that his name became a term that described inefficient, wimpy men.
Who is Walter Mitty?
100
The general topic explored in most Modernist literature was this.
What is the "American Dream"?
100
The phrase “taste the rainbow!” is an example of this poetic device, in which senses are mis-matched.
What is synesthesia?
100
In "The Love Song of ____," this man compares himself to a crab on the floor of the sea.
Who is J. Alfred Prufrock?
200
He was known for his humorous writings, even though he personally acted pessimistic (due to his blindness).
Who is James Thurber?
200
This character seemed to have the American Dream in his hands, but his suicide reflected his actual unhappiness.
Who is Richard Cory?
200
A common subject of stories and poetry in the Modernist period was this—not the American Dream, but something the Modernists of the 1900-1950s would have suffered through multiple times.
What is war?
200
A popular example of this literary device term is “moo,” the sound that a cow might make.
What is onomatopoeia?
200
This strict character was Emily's father in a short story by William Faulkner.
Who is Colonel Grierson?
300
This poet was one of the most popular in America, and was even chosen to read at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.
Who is Robert Frost?
300
In this poem, Langston Hughes describes how many different groups (like the farmer and the immigrant) have been kept from the American Dream.
What is "Let America Be America Again"?
300
This term means "a work that mimics another in form or style in order to mock it."
What is a parody?
300
**Daily Double: Extra Points Won if you get it right and Extra Points Lost if you don't!** e.e. cummings’ line “so close that i cannot touch you” is an example of this (seemingly impossible) literary device.
What is paradox?
300
Yoknapatawpha is a creation of this writer.
Who is William Faulkner?
400
This author, who usually focused on war themes, won the Nobel Prize in literature.
Who is Ernest Hemingway?
400
The soldier, Harold, in this story returns home with no energy/desire to pursue the American Dream.
What is "Soldier's Home"?
400
An anti-war theme is apparent in a certain poem by e.e. cummings, in which this word continually changes meanings.
What is "etcetera"?
400
The first “T,” “A,” and “S” from TPCASTT stand for these words.
What are "Title," "Attitude," and "Shift"?
400
This event happened to e.e. cummings? due to his strange use of syntax and style.
What is being arrested/accused as a spy?
500
This poet really liked cats, which is perhaps why he made the "fog" in his poem act cat-like.
Who is T.S. Eliot?
500
In Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” he explains that the paradise of the American Dream cannot last for everyone—alluding directly to this biblical location.
What is Eden?
500
This term refers to the idea that, because life has so many painful times, one must embrace the good times while they exist.
What is the Hemingway Code?
500
**!special question!** This allusion appears in the Modernist short stories and poems. [Name any allusion--keep it in the form of a question].
What is ... [any accurate allusion... perhaps the "O, Pioneers" allusion to Whitman in "Let America Be America Again," or the reference to the Greek sirens singing in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"].
500
One of the many allusions in T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is to this French writer (whom he greatly respected), who wrote the line "in the room the women come and go, talking of the Siennese Masters."
Who is Jules LaForgue?
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