Read the excerpt from the interview with E.Y. (Yip) Harburg.When I lost my possessions, I found my creativity. I felt I was being born for the first time. So for me the world became beautiful.With the Crash, I realized that the greatest fantasy of all was business. The only realistic way of making a living was versifying. Living off your imagination.Based on the excerpt, which best describes Harburg’s view of the Great Depression?
Read the excerpt from the interview with E.Y. (Yip) Harburg.We thought American business was the Rock of Gibraltar. We were the prosperous nation, and nothing could stop us now. A brownstone house was forever. You gave it to your kids and they put marble fronts on it. There was a feeling of continuity. If you made it, it was there forever. Suddenly the big dream exploded. How do Harburg’s words reflect the experience of many Americans during the Great Depression?
“I believe we should get the war over,” I said. “It would not finish it if one side stopped fighting. It would only be worse if we stopped fighting.” “It could not be worse,” Passini said respectfully. “There is nothing worse than war.” “Defeat is worse.” “I do not believe it,” Passini said still respectfully. “What is defeat? You go home.” “They come after you. They take your home. They take your sisters.” “I don’t believe it,” Passini said. “They can’t do that to everybody. Let everybody defend his home. Let them keep their sisters in the house.” “They hang you. They come and make you be a soldier again. Not in the auto-ambulance, in the infantry.”
Read the excerpt from Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.”The daughter could not see far in front of her and continued to play with her fingers. Although the old woman lived in this desolate spot with only her daughter and she had never seen Mr. Shiftlet before, she could tell, even from a distance, that he was a tramp and no one to be afraid of. His left coat sleeve was folded up to show there was only half an arm in it and his gaunt figure listed slightly to the side as if the breeze were pushing him.The characters in the excerpt are an example of
The major asked me to have a drink with him and two other officers. We drank rum and it was very friendly. Outside it was getting dark. I asked what time the attack was to be and they said as soon as it was dark. I went back to the drivers. They were sitting in the dugout talking and when I came in they stopped. I gave them each a package of cigarettes, Macedonias, loosely packed cigarettes that spilled tobacco and needed to have the ends twisted before you smoked them. Manera lit his lighter and passed it around. The lighter was shaped like a Fiat radiator. I told them what I had heard.
Read the excerpt from the interview with E.Y. (Yip) Harburg.The prevailing greeting at that time, on every block you passed, by some poor guy coming up, was: “Can you spare a dime?” Or: “Can you spare something for a cup of coffee?” . . . “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” finally hit on every block, on every street. I thought that could be a beautiful title. If I could only work it out by telling people, through the song, it isn’t just a man asking for a dime. This is the man who says: I built the railroads. I built that tower. I fought your wars. I was the kid with the drum. Why the hell should I be standing in line now? What happened to all this wealth I created? Why does Harburg feel that “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” is a legitimate question, not just a plea from a beggar?
Read the sentence.The group of friends came to a consensus about which movie they would agree to see together.What is the best way to rewrite the sentence to avoid repetition?
The major was a little man with upturned mustaches. He had been in the war in Libya and wore two wound-stripes. He said that if the thing went well he would see that I was decorated. I said I hoped it would go well but that he was too kind. I asked him if there was a big dugout where the drivers could stay and he sent a soldier to show me. I went with him and found the dugout, which was very good. The drivers were pleased with it and I left them there.
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.
Read the excerpt from The Great Gatsby.I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them.The phrase, “I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two” reveals
Read the sentence.When we returned to school after summer vacation, our teacher asked us to be prepared to share about our summer activities. Mark told us about his amazing visit to the Great Wall of China on Friday.What is the best way to revise the underlined sentence?
Which excerpt from “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” contains an example of a simile?
Which of the following sentences should be revised to eliminate redundancy?
Read the excerpt from Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden.What does this description about Gatsby’s house reveal about his character?
Read the excerpt from Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.”The old woman and her daughter were sitting on their porch when Mr. Shiftlet came up their road for the first time. The old woman slid to the edge of her chair and leaned forward, shading her eyes from the piercing sunset with her hand.The characters in the excerpt are an example of
Read the excerpt from Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier's Home.”In the evening he practiced on his clarinet, strolled down town, read and went to bed. He was still a hero to his two young sisters. His mother would have given him breakfast in bed if he had wanted it. She often came in when he was in bed and asked him to tell her about the war, but her attention always wandered.What important detail about Krebs’s sisters and mother is revealed?
Read the excerpt from “Good Country People.”Mrs. Hopewell liked to tell people...how she had happened to hire the Freemans in the first place and how they were a godsend to her and how she had had them four years. The reason for her keeping them so long was that they were...good country people...Before the Freemans she had averaged one tenant family a year...Mrs. Hopewell, who had divorced her husband long ago, needed someone to walk over the fields with her; and when Joy had to be impressed for these services, her remarks were usually so ugly and her face so glum... that Mrs. Hopewell would say, “If you can’t come pleasantly, I don’t want you at all,” to which the girl, standing square and rigid-shouldered with her neck thrust slightly forward, would reply, “If you want me, here I am—LIKE I AM.”Based on the excerpt, what inferences can be made about the story’s setting?
Which excerpt from O’Connor’s “Good Country People” best reveals the irony of the main character’s name, Joy?
Read the passage.The Blackwood Manor had always been a place of darkness and despair, its once-grand halls now crumbling into ruin. For generations, the family had been plagued by madness and tragedy, each heir to the estate more tormented than the last. But none were as haunted as Delilah Blackwood, the current mistress of the manor. With her sunken eyes, pallid skin, and tangled black hair, she cuts an eerie, ghostly figure as she wanders the decaying halls of her once-grand ancestral home. The manor itself seems to whisper dark secrets, the shadows shifting and writhing as if alive with malevolent spirits. Delilah can feel their presence, the weight of her family's sins pressing down upon her like a physical force. At night, the manor comes alive with unearthly howls and the sound of shattering glass, as if the very walls are crying out in anguish. Delilah knows she should leave this cursed place, but she is bound to it by blood and by the demons that haunt her own mind. As she drifts through the manor's halls, she wonders if she will ever escape the darkness that has consumed her family for generations, or if she is doomed to become another tragic chapter in the Blackwood legacy.Which phrase is the best example of figurative language?
Read the passage.The Blackwood Manor had always been a place of darkness and despair, its once-grand halls now crumbling into ruin. For generations, the family had been plagued by madness and tragedy, each heir to the estate more tormented than the last. But none were as haunted as Delilah Blackwood, the current mistress of the manor. With her sunken eyes, pallid skin, and tangled black hair, she cuts an eerie, ghostly figure as she wanders the decaying halls of her once-grand ancestral home. The manor itself seems to whisper dark secrets, the shadows shifting and writhing as if alive with malevolent spirits. Delilah can feel their presence, the weight of her family's sins pressing down upon her like a physical force. At night, the manor comes alive with unearthly howls and the sound of shattering glass, as if the very walls are crying out in anguish. Delilah knows she should leave this cursed place, but she is bound to it by blood and by the demons that haunt her own mind. As she drifts through the manor's halls, she wonders if she will ever escape the darkness that has consumed her family for generations, or if she is doomed to become another tragic chapter in the Blackwood legacy.Which excerpt best exemplifies why Delilah is a traditional Southern gothic character?
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