Sample short answer questions

Identify and explain the thematic significance of the passages in 2-4 sentences.  (You will have some choice on the actual exam: as in choosing 8 passages from a possible 12 total, e.g.)

1. He . . . advanced with a grim visage towards Gregor.  Likely enough he did not himself know what he meant to do; at any rate he lifted his feet uncommonly high, and Gregor was dumbfounded at the enormous size of his shoe soles.

A+ answer:
This passage from "The Metamorphosis" describes the approach of Gregor's father when he chases Gregor back into his room after he has made his mother faint.  The passage is significant because it shows Gregor's fear of his father, who seems determined to punish him.  Gregor's fear of his father is the story's central theme: the whole story is an artistic rendering of Kafka's actual fear of his own domineering father.  By emphasizing the great size of the father's shoes, Kafka shows Gregor's fear that his father will crush him beneath his heel, which also shows Gregor's (and Kafka's) sense of worthlessnesshe is merely an insect who deserves to be crushed because he has attempted to fill his father "enormous shoes" as head of the Samsa household.

F answer:
This is from "The Metamorphosis."  It shows Gregor's father wearing gigantic shoes and chasing Gregor back into his room.

2. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever.  So I didn't think much of it.
A+ answer:
In this passage from Huck Finn Huck is reporting Miss Watson's description of heaven.  The passage is significant because it shows how naive Huck is at the beginning of the novel: he says he wishes he could go to hell just to get away from her, and he is glad that he and Tom Sawyer are likely to be in hell together.  The passage is also significant because Huck's later decision to risk hell for rescuing Jim from slavery echoes this scene and shows a much more mature and informed understanding of heaven and hell than he demonstrates at this early point in the novel.

F answer:
This passage is from Huck Finn where Miss Watson is describing heaven to Huck.


3. "She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

A+ answer:
This passage is from Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," and the Misfit is talking about the grandmother after he kills her.  The passage is significant because it highlights the ironic point that the grandmother, who was a dingbat usually, actually behaves like a good Christian woman, or even like Christ himself, when the Misfit is about to kill her.  She shows sympathy for her murderer when she treats him like her son and reaches out to comfort himthe implication is that she would have been a truly good woman if she had had such moments of stress all the time.

D answer:
The Misfit says this.  I don't remember the story too well, but I think it involves Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, and of course, its central theme is that the Atlanta Braves are the baddest team in baseball.