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English 11

Unit 6

Contemporary American Literature

6 topics · 24 practice questions · Free responseNot yet reviewed

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Notes

Identity and the American Dream

  • Contemporary literature (mid-1900s to now) features many voices and themes of identity, belonging, memory and justice.
  • Miller (Death of a Salesman) and Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun) question what success means and who can reach the American Dream.

Cultural identity and voice

  • Cisneros, Tan and Lahiri explore life between cultures; Momaday, Erdrich and Alexie draw on Native traditions and community.
  • Morrison and O'Brien explore memory and the truth of stories.

Techniques and writing about them

  • Techniques: magical realism, multiple narrators, nonlinear structure, metafiction, code-switching, hybrid forms.
  • Discuss works in your own words and quote only when needed, with citations.

Topics in this unit

Each topic has its own short notes and practice.

Practice

The House on Mango Street is narrated mostly through:
Willy Loman's downfall in Death of a Salesman is partly caused by:
A story shows an immigrant daughter and her mother misunderstanding each other because of language and cultural expectations. This is a typical theme of:
Why does O'Brien blend fact and fiction in The Things They Carried?
In a discussion of a recent novel, which approach follows good practice for avoiding plagiarism?
A narrator tells about a haunted family where ghosts walk through rooms and everyone treats it as normal. Which technique is it?

Free response

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Free-response question

Read this original passage: "My grandmother cooked rice the way she had in her village, and I ate it with a fork at a school lunch table where nobody asked what it was. Some days I wished they would ask. Other days I was afraid of the answer I might give."

(a) Identify the theme of identity in the passage.

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The narrator is caught between family heritage and fitting in at school. The ambivalence about being asked shows a struggle over how to present one's culture.

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(b) Explain how the sentence "Some days I wished they would ask. Other days I was afraid of the answer I might give" shapes the passage.

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The parallel sentences show conflicting feelings: wanting acknowledgment and fearing exposure. The contrast conveys the narrator's uncertainty about identity.

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(c) Compare the passage's theme to one work from this unit, in your own words.

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Example: In The Joy Luck Club, daughters of immigrants face cultural gaps with their mothers, and in this passage the narrator also negotiates heritage and fitting in. Both explore belonging between cultures.

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