4 Questions with Answers in Final Exams | FLET 391, Exams of Linguistics

Download 4 Questions with Answers in Final Exams | FLET 391 and more Exams Linguistics in PDF only on Docsity! INTL/FLET 391 RUSSIAN WRITERS TAKE-HOME EXAM This take-home exam will be due on Tuesday, May 5th. On that day by 4 PM (!), please bring the hard copy to Lafayette Hall (312 N. Shafer St., corner of Grace and Shafer) and put it in my mailbox (in the row of mailboxes on the wall on the 2nd floor). No extensions will be possible. In addition, I will need an electronic copy of your exam. Please place a copy of your file in the digital drop box on Bb. Instructions for using the drop box can be found on the Course Information page. If you want to also email me the exam in order to be safe, you may do so. This exam seeks to elicit your direct engagement with the texts. I will be looking for your own detailed observations and original analysis. It would thus be best not to consult critical articles, reviews, study guides on the internet, etc. If you do end up consulting a source, you must cite each instance where it has influenced your thinking, whether or not you’ve quoted or paraphrased it. All writing in this class is considered pledged. Information about the Honor Code is on the syllabus. Any violations will be handled according to the policy. I recommend that you review the works with the questions in mind, reflect upon and outline your answers, but that you ultimately write the exam in one fell swoop, just as if it were an exam you were writing in the classroom. The difference will be that, of course, you would be free to tinker with it and improve it as long as it’s submitted by the May 5th deadline. Note on formatting: Do not reproduce either the passages or the questions on your test. It will suffice simply to number your answers, for example: Part I (1), and then to proceed. All work must be typed in 12-pt. Times Roman font, double-spaced, with one-inch margins all around. No need to insert extra space between answers. Please staple your work (no plastic folders please). Also: Please remember to check for grammar/spelling/punctuation/style errors and to proofread. I will deduct points from work containing a high number of grammar/punctuation/spelling/ stylistic errors. Extra credit can be earned if you visit the Writing Center and they email me about the consultation. If I see from your exam that you’ve implemented their suggestions (including of course stylistic improvements), that will be taken into account. If you plan to use the Writing Center, you should make an appointment very soon, as they get very busy at this time of the semester. PART I. Commentaries on passages. 1) During their conversation about ghosts, Svidrigailov and Raskolnikov discuss the possibility of another world (an afterlife). Svidrigailov shares with Raskolnikov his vision of eternity. Contextualize, explain, and respond to this passage. Some questions to consider before you write: Does the passage bring to light some of the implications of Raskolnikov’s “theory” (that he has the right to step over conventional morality)? Does it show a dark side of his ideas on humankind? Why does Svidrigailov laugh and note that they are “apples from the same tree”? Is that true? Why does Raskolnikov recoil from Svidrigailov’s vision? Write approximately two-three paragraphs. “I do not believe in a future life,” said Raskolnikov. Svidrigailov sat thinking. “And what if there are only spiders there, or something of the sort,” he said suddenly. “He’s a madman,” thought Raskolnikov. “We keep imagining eternity as an idea that cannot be grasped, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, imagine suddenly that there will be one little room there, something like a village bathhouse, covered with soot, with spiders in all the corners, and that’s the whole of eternity. I sometimes fancy something of the sort.” “But surely, surely, you can imagine something more just and comforting than that!” Raskolnikov cried out with painful feeling. “More just? Who knows, perhaps that is just—and, you know, if I had my way, it’s certainly how I would do it!” Svidrigailov answered, smiling vaguely. A sort of chill came over Raskolnikov at this hideous answer. Svidrigailov raised his head, looked at him intently, and suddenly burst out laughing. “No, but realize,” he cried, “that half an hour ago we had never even seen each other, we’re supposed to be enemies, there’s unfinished business between us; so we’ve dropped the business, and look what literature we’ve gone sailing into! Well, wasn’t it true when I said we were apples from the same tree?” (Part IV, Chapter I, pp. 289-290 of Pevear and Volokhonsky translation) 2) Explain and respond to the following passage. What is its function in the novel as a whole? How is this dream different from the other dreams in the novel? Why do you think Dostoevsky included it? What message do you think he wanted his readers to take away? Write approximately one-two paragraphs. He lay in the hospital all through the end of Lent and Holy Week. As he began to recover, he remembered his dreams from when he was still lying in feverish delirium. In his illness he had dreamed that the whole world was doomed to fall victim to some terrible, as yet unknown and unseen pestilence spreading to Europe from the depths of Asia. Everyone was to perish, except for certain, very few, chosen ones. Some new trichinae had appeared, microscopic creatures that lodged themselves in men’s bodies. But these creatures were spirits, endowed with reason and will. Those who received them into themselves immediately became possessed and mad. But never, never had people considered themselves so intelligent and unshakeable in the truth as did these infected ones. Never had they thought their judgments, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions and beliefs more unshakeable. Entire settlements, entire cities and nations would be infected and go mad. Everyone became anxious, and no one understood anyone else; each thought the truth was contained in himself alone, and suffered looking at others, beat his breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know whom or how to judge, could not agree on what to regard as evil, what as good. . . . The pestilence grew and spread further and further. Only a few people in the whole world could be saved; they were pure and chosen, destined to begin a new generation of people and a new life, to renew and purify the earth; but no one had seen these people anywhere, no one had heard their words or voices (C&P, Epilogue, pp. 547-548). 3) Instead of dialectics, there was life, and something completely different had to work itself out in his consciousness (C&P, Epilogue, p. 550).