Eng 1o2 – Introduction to Literature - Faculty Websites - Dutchess ...

Week 4 – Sept 16-20Week 5 – Sept 23-27Week 6 – Sept 30-Oct 4Week 7 – Oct 7-11Week 8 – Oct 14-18Week 9 – Oct 21-25Week 10 – Oct 28-Nov 1Faulkner, “A Rose For Emily” (391-397),O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (299-310)O’Connor, “Everything That Rises Must Converge” (323-333)Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener” (534-558)Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” (63-85)Adrienne Rich, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” (660)Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz” (734)Maxine Kumin, “Woodchucks” (659-660)PAPER TWO DUEBrowning, “My Last Duchess” (1009)Bishop, “One Art” (Handout)Bishop, “Sestina” (829)MID-TERM GRADESNO CLASS MONDAYStevens, “Anecdote of a Jar” (1043)Stevens, “The Emperor of Ice Cream” (1042)Plath, “Daddy” (983-985)Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1015-1019)Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (Handout)Shakespeare, sonnets (646, 842, 756, 913, 752, 814)PAPER THREE DUEWeek 11 – Nov 4-8 Shakespeare, Hamlet, Acts I-II (1305-1343)Week 12 – Nov 11-15 Shakespeare, Hamlet, Acts III-V (1343-1398)Week 13 – Nov 18-22Week 14 – Nov 25-29Sophocles, Oedipus the King (1711-1749), PAPER FOUR DUEIbsen, A Doll House (1135-1182)NO CLASS FRIDAYWeek 15 – Dec 2-6 Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1408-1471)Week 16 – Dec 9-13FINAL EXAMCourse Policies:Attendance - There is no official policy for attendance, since it is of course your choice to attendclass regularly. No one will be dropped for not showing up to class. That said, I will not give aparticipation grade to students who are not in class very often. For Eng 102, this means losing10% or a full letter grade.Plagiarism - I have a no tolerance policy for plagiarism, the intentional (or unintentional) use ofsomeone else’s work as your own. This is cheating, plain and simple, and it’s a waste of the moneyyou spent on tuition. If you are caught plagiarizing, I will give you a zero for the assignment, andyou may be reported to Dean’s office.Assignments/Grade Determination:Paper 1 10%Paper 2 15%Paper 3 20%Paper 4 20%Final Exam 25%Class Participation 10%Please note that this is a working syllabus: assignmentsand due dates are subject to change. I will provideupdates and detailed reading assignments throughoutthe semester. Please remember to visit the course websiteregularly:http://faculty.sunydutchess.edu/oneill

The Story of An HourKate ChopinKnowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great carewas taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hintsthat revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too,near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of therailroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of“killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a secondtelegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend inbearing the sad message.She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with aparalyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wildabandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself shewent away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Intothis she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body andseemed to reach into her soul.She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees thatwere all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in theair. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant songwhich some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows weretwittering in the eaves.There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the cloudsthat had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quitemotionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a childwho has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression andeven a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gazewas fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glanceof reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully.What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she feltit, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents,the color that filled the air.Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning torecognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving tobeat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands wouldhave been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped herslightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!”The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes.They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing bloodwarmed and relaxed every inch of her body.She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her.A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.

She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands foldedin death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and grayand dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years tocome that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her armsout to them in welcome.There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she wouldlive for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blindpersistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose aprivate will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made theact seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment ofillumination.And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did itmatter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of thispossession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongestimpulse of her being!“Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole,imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you willmake yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”“Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixirof life through that open window.Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, andsummer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quickprayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with ashudder that life might be long.She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities.There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly likea goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist, and together they descendedthe stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was BrentlyMallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sackand umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not evenknow there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; atRichards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joythat kills.(1894)