Directions: Read the poem below. Then, answer the comprehension, analysis, and synthesis questions that follow. (click on the image to expand, click ESC to return)
Background: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet and an important 20th century figure in literature. The Second Coming is the Christian idea that Jesus will someday return to earth. The following poem imagines the Second Coming as apocalyptic in order to describe the atmosphere of Europe after World War I.
The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre*
The falcon cannot hear the falconer*;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi*
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man*,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem* to be born?
FOOTNOTES:
*A gyre is a revolution or a circuit (a full circle). Yeats wrote about gyres in his work A Vision, in which this particular gyre was a period of about 2,000 years after Christ (the 20th century).
*A falconer is a person who keeps and trains falcons or other birds of prey.
*According to W. B. Yeats, “Spiritus Mundi” is a spiritual world, which is accessible to perceptive people.
*A sphinx is a mythic creature, known for its cunning and mercilessness. Yeats may also be directly referencing the Great Sphinx of Giza, an ancient Egyptian monument in the Al Giza Desert.
*Bethlehem is believed to be the place of Jesus’ birth
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Question 1
1.
In the opening stanza, the speaker describes the "widening gyre."
While this literally describes the circling of the falcon, riding the air currents above the falconer; this image metaphorically illustrates...
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Question 2
2.
The scene the speaker describes in this poem is...
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Question 3
3.
What happens in the speaker's vision when they mention the Second Coming?
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Question 4
4.
Throughout this poem, Yeats uses ____ to illustrate his deeper meaning about the 20th century.
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Question 5
5.
By the end of the poem, the speaker...
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Question 6
6.
Achebe opens this novel with this quote from "The Second Coming."
When an author includes a quote from another text to introduce a novel, poem, chapter, or essay, this a literary device called an...
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Question 7
7.
Explain: Why does Achebe name his novel and open Things Fall Apart with a reference to this poem?
3+ sentences, be specific and detailed in your response.
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Question 8
8.
Who is Okonkwo's father? Why does he have no patience for his father?
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Question 9
9.
What motif across the story has come to symbolize both meeting, gathering, and news as well as the heart of the village/beating heart of Okonkwo?
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Question 10
10.
Whose death greatly shaped both Okonkwo and Nwoye's character?
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Question 11
11.
What do both Ekwefi and Okonkwo share in common (but do not speak together about)?
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Question 12
12.
What tragedy closes Part 1 and marks the end of this "chapter" of Okonkwo's life?
How does Martha Benson react to her daughter's condition?
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Question 14
14.
How does Martha view the doctor?
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Question 15
15.
When Martha meets the faith-cure man...
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Question 16
16.
How does Martha proceed after meeting the faith-cure man?
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Question 17
17.
Which statement below BESTcharacterizes how the faith-cure man interacts with Lucy?
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Question 18
18.
What does Martha mean when she says she's a "puffessor" in paragraph 29?
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Question 19
19.
Which detail from the text best supports your answer to the previous question?
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Question 20
20.
Which statement below BESTcharacterizes Martha's faith in God at the end of the story?
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Question 21
21.
Which statement best expresses one of the centralthemes of the story "The Faith Cure Man"?
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Question 22
22.
Which TWO pieces of evidence from the text best support your answer to the previous question?
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Question 23
23.
Complete the analogy below:
MARTHA is to theLUCY as EKWEFI is to....
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Question 24
24.
Complete the analogy below:
MARTHA is to theFAITH CURE MAN as EKWEFI is to....
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Question 25
25.
Compare and/or ContrastThe Faith Cure Man and Dunbar's perspective of medicine and mysticism with Things Fall Apart and Achebe's perspective of medicine and mysticism.
5+ sentences, be specific and detailed in your response.
Directions: Review your annotations and notes on Part 1. Go through and highlight repeated themes/deeper meanings and gather evidence into collections by theme.
Then, respond to the prompt below in a complete AEC Paragraph (Assertion + Evidence + Commentary). 30 points: to view the rubric, click the blue word "Rubric" below the number.
PROMPT: How does Chinua Achebe develop a theme across Part 1 to convey his deeper meaning or purpose in writing Things Fall Apart?
Choose ONE theme to analyze in your response, drawing evidence from at least 3 different chapters in your analysis. Consider his post-colonial purpose for writing TFA...
Example Thesis: In The Faith Cure Man, Dunbar shows a mother's dying hope and faith in the future through the death of her daughter in order to convey a deeper meaning about the discouraging harshness of life for African Americans in the early 1900s.
