ENG 102 Winter 20/21

Culture:

These links discuss cultural differences and also provides a number of links if you go to the bottom of the page. Use the information they provide as outside sources if you are writing your essay about this subject:

http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/culture.htm

http://www.worldwide.edu/travel_planner/culture_shock.html

http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijps/article/view/4510

Here is one on the effects of culture shock:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=effects+culture+shock&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=tIk6T-mJBaLn0QHXj5GXCw&ved=0CBoQgQMwAA

Links for "The Handsomest Drowned Man In the World":

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=THE+HANDSOMEST+DROWNED+MAN+IN+THE+WORLD&as_sdt=1%2C31&as_sdtp=

This week we will look at “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”, “The Temp” and Edward Scissorhandsin class. All three of these stories contain individuals that become part of a community in some way and have profound effects of the people. In “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” it is a corpse that washes ashore that gives the townspeople a new way of looking at their lives, in “The Temp” it is a temp hired in an office that changes the atmosphere of the wor enviroment and in Edward Scissorhands it is a unique young man that forces a rather boring town to see how boring and judgmental they really are. This week pay attention to what these “magical strangers” force the people in the stories to look at it in their lives.

The Importance of appearance:
http://elitedaily.com/news/world/the-importance-of-appearances-man-dresses-as-homeless-man-to-prove-nobody-would-help-him-video/592301/

http://www.ridingthetiger.org/2013/03/19/the-importance-of-appearance/

http://www.byui.edu/Documents/Admin_Offices/Advising/PowerOfPersonalAppearance.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/a-facial-theory-of-politics.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/appearances-mean-nothing-or-everything/?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/fashion/26looks.html?pagewanted=all&module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw

http://www.history.com/topics/harlem-renaissance

Below is the Bible scripture that Baldwin refers to:
“The cup of trembling”
22
Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:
23
But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over

THESE QUESTIONS ARE JUST MEANT FOR ADDITIONAL GUIDELINES. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ANSWER THESE OR HAND THEM IN!

1) At one point the narrator says that Sonny was playing “playing for his life”; what does this quotation mean to you? Explain

2) Can you find a place in the story where Baldwin makes use of the images of darkness and light? Explain the use of light and darkness

3) Reread the exchange between the narrator and Sonny's friend. How would you characterize the narrator's behavior and feelings towards Sonny's friend? Is the narrator kind, cruel, compassionate, abrupt, empathic, angry? Explain your view and the evidence supporting it. Why does the narrator react the way he does?

4) Critics have said that “Sonny’s Blues” is a story about hope but that hope is tempered by knowledge of terrible dangers.

"A Pair of Tickets"

This is a resource for Asian American culture in America:

http://www.asian-nation.org/assimilation.shtml

Interviews with Amy Tan (author of "A Pair of Tickets"):

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/travel/amy-tans-evolving-sense-of-china.html?hpw&rref=travel&_r=0&referrer=

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/mar/03/fiction.features

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/17/558295524/-i-am-full-of-contradictions-novelist-amy-tan-on-fate-and-family

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COVE8t4vvfo

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2007/05/01/a-conversation-with-amy-tan/

Here is a biography:

https://www.notablebiographies.com/St-Tr/Tan-Amy.html