LCL 326

2nd Term 2019

Contemporary Literatures in English

Group TH Test on Unit 1

Modernism: Joyce’s “The Dead” and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of
One’s Own.

Name: Score: Grade:

Some notes before you start:

 Pairs tp grpups of 4. You may work by yourself. If more than 4, add a page to
the extension per extra member and an extra quotation to each answer.
 Try to stick to 6 to 8 page extension
 page size: letter
 Number the pages (add last name of students to the page number)
 Margins: 2,5 cm (except right one: 3 cm.).
 Font: size: 12; Font: Times New Roman, Georgia or Arial; spacing: double
space
 Any hint of plagiarism implies I stop correcting and you get minimum grade.
So, please, be careful if using sources. There’s no “accidental plagiarism”.
 Include bibliography and sources used (which will always be appreciated
when used wisely). If none is, state it on a note at the end of the document.
 Include annotations and outlines you will work with today.
 Send to my e-mail: p.villa.prof@gmail.com on agreed deadline (Jan 6)

In groups discuss the following and provide an answer.

1. If we understand “The Dead” as an epiphanic story, how do the last

moments narrated in James Joyce’s “The Dead” restate and change
ironically the meaning of both the party and the story we have read? What is
the new context Gabriel needs to place himself in due to that epiphany? How
does this final moment bring crisis to his life and ours? What does the story
have to say about the way we “read” life? How does the image that Joyce
presents of Ireland coincide with yours of Chile? If the act of reading as
proposed by Joyce is one of awakening, how does the ending of the story
relate to the motto “Chile Despertó”? As a final reflection, imagine how
events would have happened in the story had Joyce been Chilean and
writing about current events here. Does the context change much? Would he
have changed the ending of the story? Why? Why not? Quote at least twice
from the story. (2 points)

2. Choose ONE of these?(3 points)

 a. Why is it important for us readers to understand that Virginia Woolf
is a hybrid writer and someone who is constantly using irony to
dismantle patriarchal powers that constraint the almost inexistent
spaces given to women at the beginning of the XXth century in
England? How does she blend this hybridity and irony? Quote at
least twice from the text of AROOO to justify your points. How is this
kind of writing more complex and a threat to official (patriarchal)
power? Why is it important that Woolf introduces such a variety of
narrative and testimony? How can this new kind of writing be used by
you, the common Chilean reader of Woolf, to contrast and counter
current official platitudes such as “the secret enemy”, the idea of
“normalcy” or the apparent influence of K-Pop in the social
movement started on October 18th in Chile?
b. Based on your informed reading of AROOO, speculate on what
Woolf’s reaction would be to performances such as Mon Laferte’s
support to the social movement or street interventions such as “Un
Violador en tu Camino”. Check ideas from Woolf’s essay, bibliography
(if you can) and use them to provide a critical and informed reading
of the book and its projection into what is happening in the streets of
Chile (focus on the feminist side of manifestations and gender
vilence). When you read, keep in mind Woolf was a (proto) feminist,
but not a radical; an antibourgeois, but someone protected by her
privilege; a respected intellectual, but also a survivor of sexual abuse.

Good luck and in case of any doubt, please contact me.