Author's Lives
Which author was born as Ludwig Pfeuffer?
Yehuda Amichai
What is the setting of Nadine Gordimer's “The Moment Before the Gun Went Off”?"
Rural South Africa in the last years of official apartheid.
This text presents humans as animals in an attempt to distance the reader from the very grim subject matter.
Maus, Art Spiegelman
"How would we find our way to the sea? Would we see it as soon as we arrived in Beirut? Was it at the other end of it? Would the bus stop in the district of Zeytouna, at the door of the women's swimming pool? Why, I wondered, was it called Zeytouna?"
"The Women's Swimming Pool," Hanan Al-Shaykh
What two pieces of information should you always include in your thesis?
Title of text and author's name
This author was born in southern Lebanon, raised in Beirut by a strict Shiite family.
Hanan Al-Shaykh
This story takes us into 17-year-old Rosa’s lively and inquisitive mind, and into the world of the convent school where she works her magic.
"Passion," Doreen Baingana
Which author is said to be "the most influential African writer?"
Chinua Achebe
"Behind him on the blackboard, among the winding French rivers, sprawled the clumsily chalked-up word he had just read: 'You handed over our brother. You will pay for this.' Daru looked at the sky, the plateau, and, beyond, the invisible lands stretching all the way to the sea. In this vast landscape he had loved so much, he was alone."
"The Guest," Albert Camus
What are the three components of a literary analysis?
Claim, Reason, Evidence
Which author was born into a "world of poverty and light" in Algeria (at the time, a colony of France)?
Albert Camus
(see page 743)
In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, what animals represented the Jews, Germans, and Polish?
Jews = Mouse; Germans = Cat; Polish = Pigs
What is the Absurd?
"The impossibility of `making sense' of a world that has no discernible sense."
(page 753)
"Please little sister. I am not trying to interfere in your private life. You said ourself a little while ago that you wanted a man of your own. That man belongs to so many women already..."
"Two Sisters," Ama Ata Aidoo
What is an analytical claim?
An arguable statement (thesis) about the significance of the text/passage that offers insight into what the text does, how it creates meaning, and/or why it matters in a particular context.
It should never be obvious or statement of fact.
This author's emphasis on the urban life of young women demonstrates the specific conditions of the sexual revolution and feminism in African culture.
Ama Ata Aidoo
This story is told through the eyes of a young inmate, who feels fortunate to have been chosen for the mission of emptying the train cars, hopeful to gain some food and other goods for survival.
"This Way For the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen,” Tadeusz Borowski
This poem highlights the importance of memory of the homeland and the vital connection of the physical body to the place.
“If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem,” Yehuda Amichai
"If the west wind does not come
I'll never forgive the walls,
Or the sea, or myself.
Should my right forget,
My left shall forgive,
I shall forget all water,
I shall forget my mother.
"If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem," Yehuda Amichai
What is the "Reason" component of a literary analysis?
A statement you create that enhances the persuasiveness of your claim, in some way answers the question “why should we (your audience) believe/agree with your claim?
This author's political visions of a post-apartheid South Africa led to the banning of several of their books. Despite this censorship, they received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991.
Nadine Gordimer
Which text has an omniscient narrator with four perspectives?
"In Camera," Nawal El Saadawi
This text can be read as a tribute to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, extending of some of its concerns into feminist concerns.
"The Headstrong Historian," Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
"The light was still strong and her eyes still could not see, but her eyes were beginning to catch the sound of voices and murmurings. She lifted her hand off her eyes and gradually began to open them. Blurred human silhouettes moved before her on some elevated construction. She suddenly felt frightened, for human forms frightened her more than any others."
"In Camera," Nawal El Saadawi
What is the "Evidence" component of a literary analysis?
Something you find that enhances the persuasiveness of your claim, in some way answers the question “why should we (your audience) believe/agree with your claim?”
In literary analysis the text is often the primary source of evidence (aka QUOTES!)
This author uses the everyday details of modern life to telescope two centuries of African history, marking their work as great historical writing that also has tremendous contemporary relevance.
Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
(see page 1190)
This story follows the career of Wariuki, whose free spirited Afro-centric behavior enthralls Mariamu, but distresses her fully assimilated parents. Although she sides with Wariuki, willing to live in poverty to be wedded with him, he is irreparably stung by her father’s dismissal of him as a man. Finding opportunities offered by revolution and independence, he finds financial fortune and returns triumphant to prove himself to Mariamu’s father. The artificial nature of his “conversion” is shown in the ludicrous name he adopts, Dodge W. Livingstone, jr., and the culminating episode referred to by the title is rejected by Mariamu as meaningless.
“Wedding at the Cross,” Ngugi wa Thiong'o
This story explores the limits and risks of sexual experimentation as they they intersect with the turbulent political history of Ghana.
"Two Sisters," Ama Ata Aidoo
"later, when the farm grew too small to hold her curiosity, she carried a gun in the crook of her arm and wandered miles a day, from vlei to vlei, from kopje to kopje, accompanied by two dogs: the dogs and the gun were an armour against fear. Because of them she never felt fear."
"The Old Chief Mshlanga," Doris Lessing
Where can I find the prompts for the final exam's essay?
This author's work attempts to counteract the distortions of English literature about Africa by describing the richness and complexity of traditional African society before the colonial and missionary invasion.
Chinua Achebe
This story focuses on a young girl who has been raised in a remote place, and whose imagination has been inspired by images of the sea.
“The Women’s Swimming Pool," Hanan Al-Shaykh
This author takes the traditional role of theater from the Greek and Western tradition and combines it with performative qualities of Yoruba ritual and ceremony, (Yoruba is one of the three major ethnic/language groups in Nigeria), adding some political consciousness that seems to be native to post-colonial Africa.
Wole Soyinka
"Two years later he went to the village school. His right hand could now reach across his head to his left ear, which proved that he was old enough to tackle the mysteries of the white man's learning."
"Chike's School Days," Chinua Achebe
Will a bibliography/works cited section be necessary for the final exam's essay?
Every paper should follow the protocol of "works cited." Use MLA format.
Example. Achebe, Chinua. "Chike's Schooldays." In The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Fourth Edition, Vol. F. W. W. Norton and Co., 2018 (pp. 807-812).
Doris Lessing
(page 716)
In Ama Ata Aidoo's "Two Sisters," Mercy visits the seashore with her boyfriend. How does the narrator personify the Gulf of Guinea?
As a god who looks with compassion on Mercy's folly.
(see page 917 for more)
Nawal El Saadawi's "In Camera" examines the psychological impact of the patriarchal oppressiveness of the Egyptian government and Egyptian culture more generally under what president?
President Anwar Sadat
"Nwamgba was alarmed by how indiscriminately the missionaries flogged students- for being late, for being lazy, for being slow, for being idle. And once, as Anikwenwa told her, Father Lutz had put metal cuffs around a girl's wrists to teach her a lesson about lying, all the time saying in Igbo- Father Lutz spoke a broken brand of Igbo- that native parents pampered their children too much, that teaching the Gospel also meant teaching proper discipline."
"The Headstrong Historian," Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
Will the pre-exam essay(s) and exam-essay(s) be different and be graded with a different rubric?
There will be one set of prompts on the 4th, and another at the end of the exam on the 11th. The "degree of difficulty" will be the same. The standards for evaluation will be roughly the same.
A thesis-driven essay that is clear in its terms and presentation. The author's familiarity with the text(s) under discussion should be evident in the essay.
This Kenyan author is a polarizing figure in modern African literature, primarily for his public debate with writers like Chinua Achebe, in which he contends that writing in the language of the colonizing country is tantamount to collaboration with the oppressor.
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
This story is based on an actual event: a British colonial officer's intervention to prevent the ritual suicide, following the death of the king of Oyo, of his "horseman," a minor chief whose privileges were conditional on his accompanying the king to the afterworld. The officer does not realize the dire consequences his intervention will have for the village and, most important, for the King's horseman's son, who is also the officer's protégé.
Death and the King’s Horseman, Wole Soyinka
There are three phases of Darwish's poetry discussed in lecture. What major theme develops throughout these three phases?
The increasing loss of nationalistic hope
"Wariuki had the one obsession: to erase the memory of that interview, to lay for ever the ghost of those contemptuous eyes. He fought in Egypt, Palestine, Burma and in Madagascar. he did not think much about the war, he did not question what it meant for black people, he just wanted it to end quickly so that he might resume his quest."
"Wedding at the Cross," Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Should I include a title for my essay?