Midterm Exam -- Modern Literature

Modern & Contemporary Literature: Privilege and Society

Midterm Exam

To demonstrate your engagement with our reading, discussion, and topics of study thus far, please respond to the following prompts and questions on a separate sheet of paper. This exam is worth 200 pts. of your total grade; each prompt is valued at the number of points listed in bold beside it.

1) Compare and contrast the following pairs of characters from The Tortilla Curtain. Consider their personal attributes, philosophies, actions, and worldviews.

            - Delaney & Cándido

            - Kyra & América

            - Jack Jardine, Jr. & José Navidád

2) In traditional literature, there is typically a protagonist (good guy) and antagonist (bad guy). However, as we first discovered in “The Love of My Life,” T.C. Boyle blurs the lines of morality to create a much more realistic portrayal of his characters—human beings are never all good or all bad. What attributes and actions make Delaney the protagonist? What attributes and actions make Cándido the protagonist? What attributes and actions make Cándido the antagonist? What attributes and actions make Delaney the antagonist?

3) How does Maslow’s hierarchy apply to the following excerpt of The Tortilla Curtain? How do América’s needs and aspirations frame the concept of suffering? How does this connect to the concept of privilege?

“She was tired, that was all. Her shoulders ached and her fingers burned where the skin was peeling back from her nails. And she was hungry, always hungry. If she’d stayed in Tepoztlán through all the gray days of her life she would have had enough to eat, as long as her father was alive and she jumped like a slave every time he snapped his fingers, but she would never have had anything more, not even a husband, because all the men in the village, all the decent ones, went North nine months a year. Or ten months. Or permanently. To succeed, to make the leap, you had to suffer. And her suffering was nothing compared to the tribulations of the saints or the people living in the streets of Mexico City and Tijuana, crippled and abandoned by God and man alike. So what if she had to live in a hut in the woods? It wouldn’t be for long. She had Cándido and she’d earned her first money and now Cándido was able to work again and the nightmare of the past few weeks was over. They’d have a place by the time the rains came in the fall, he’d promised her, and then they’d look back on all this as an adventure, a funny story, something to tell their grandchildren. Cándido, she would say, do you remember the time the car hit you, the time we camped out like Indians and cooked over the open fire, remember? Maybe they’d have a picnic here someday, with their son and maybe a daughter too” (139/___).

4) Read “Putting up the Gates” by Edward J. Blakely and Mary Gail Snyder. Reflect on the use of a gate in Arroyo Blanco Estates using evidence from the novel and from the reading.