Dante M. Llorente Jr. Ms. Charity L.

Cebu
STEM 12-A
21st Century Literature: Quarter 2- Week 1
Practice Task 1
1. B 6. C
2. D 7. A
3. A 8. A
4. A 9. C
5. B 10. C
Practice Task 2
1. Marxist criticism places a literary work within the context of class and
assumptions about class. A premise of Marxist criticism is that literature
can be viewed as ideological and that it can be analyzed in terms of a
Base/Superstructure model.
2. Marxism originated from the thought of a German radical philosopher and economist
Karl Marx, with important distributions from his friend and collaborator Friedrich
Engels.
3. It is mainly concerned with the battle between the working class and the
ownership class and favors communism and socialism over capitalism.
4. Georg Lucáks, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Terry Eagleton, Raymond
Williams, Frederic Jameson.
5. To Marxism, literature belongs to the superstructure which is a product of
the base realities. The Marxist approach relates the literary text to the
society, to the history and cultural and political systems in which it is
created.
6. Marxist literary criticism suggests that works of literature are brought
about by history and are analyzed through looking at the social and material
conditions in the plot. Also, it proposes that socio-economic status is the
foundation of everything, even literature.
7. A Marxist analysis of the work views it as an expression of modern class
struggle in literary theory. Literature is more than just a means of
expressing oneself. It has something to do with the social and political
conditions of the period.
8. Introduction (contains basic author and reading text), Body (arguments,
evidence), Conclusion (overall impression of the work).
Practice Task 3
1. Mathilde Loisel- charming, but ungrateful, jealous, and always longs for
more.
Monsieur Loisel- Mathilde’s loving husband. He is patient with Mathilde and
tries his best to get the things she wants.
Madame Forestier- A former schoolmate and wealthy friend of Mathilde.
 2. Mathilde Loisel - lower middle class
Madame Forestier - wealthy, upper class.
Monsieur Loisel - lower middle class.
3. Madame Forestier represents the upper class, while Mathilde Loisel and
Monsieur Loisel represent the lower middle class.
4. The story reinforces the value of contentment gratefulness. It talks about
how we as people should live our lives without comparing ourselves to
everyone. It’s okay to dream big, but don’t let that dream ruin the lives of
other people.
5. The story weakens the value of trust and honesty. Mathilde lied and look at
what happened to her, Mathilde suffered the consequences of her actions
while Madame Forestier continues to live her life without knowing what
Mathilde did.
6. Mathilde and Madame Forestier’s relationship was parasitic. Because of the
social status of Madame Forestier, Mathilde felt jealous of her friend and
tries to avoid her. When Mathilde needed a necklace for the ball, she went
to her friend and borrowed it from her. This just goes to show she only
needed Madame Forestier when it benefits her. When the necklace got, it was
a problem for both Mathilde and Madame Forestier, but Mathilde didn’t want
her friend to know it was lost so she tried everything she could to find an
exact copy of that necklace causing her to borrow money from everyone.
7. Mathilde and Monsieur Loisel represent the lower class of society, while
Madame Forestier represents the upper class of society.

Assessment
The Necklace" is a short story by French writer Guy de Maupassant that was
first published in the French journal Le Figaro on February 17, 1884. It is noted
for its twist ending, which was a trademark of de Maupassant's style. The story
follows a beautiful woman belonging to the lower middle class of society. She
longs for more in her miserable life but ended up struggling even more because of
her discontentment. She went to the ball with a borrowed diamond necklace, but
she misplaced it. She then had to buy a similar new one, putting them in debt and
poverty. Years later, she discovers that the jewelry she borrowed was fake, and
they purchased a genuine one. She would not have borrowed and lost the jewelry if
she had never been unhappy with what she had. "Being dissatisfied might bring you
issues," Maupassant's thesis was conveyed through conflict and situational irony.
A lot of readers relate to this story deeply from a Marxist perspective.
Back in the 18th century in France, many people struggled with their lives just as
much as Mathilde did. They felt regret, discontentment, and depression. The short
story perfectly describes the human struggles and the problems of capitalism. One
thing we also have to consider is that Mathilde is a woman. Women before didn’t
get to experience the same privilege men do. As a woman back in the day, you have
to do extra hard work and even undergo an uncomfortable experience to be
recognized and get a salary. Even now, there is still a salary gap between men
and women in work. In the ending of the story, the author used situational irony
and made the story have a plot twist that affected the theme. In the short story,
Mathilde said, “I-I-I have not Mme. Forester’s diamond necklace” (pg.4). This is
an example of situational irony because it means she lost the necklace. The
situation this put them in was ironic because she was just having fun at the ball
and now, she lost a very expensive necklace. Her being discontent caused her to
borrow the necklace which she lost. Another example was that the necklace was
fake and worth barely anything (pg.5). They had gone into debt for nothing.
Overall, I think the story used a twisted plot that made me widen my eyes
and felt shocked when I read that the necklace was just a fake. It made me feel
what Mathilde had to go through just for the fake necklace. All that hard work
for nothing. I also want to applaud the author’s writing and his amazing
depiction of the two common societal problems i.e., capitalism and misogyny. I
like the story and would like to recommend this short story to everyone.

Reflections/Comments/Suggestions
1. I learned that knowing Marxism criticism allows us to dive deeper into the
nature and mind of a story. It tells us the flaws of society and how people
struggle a lot from it.
2. The part of the lesson I found difficult is the part where I analyze the
necklace and make a Marxist critique of it.
Dante M. Llorente Jr. Ms. Charity L.
Cebu
Grade 12 STEM-A
21st Century Literature: Quarter 2- Week 2
Practice Task 1
1. Basic Tenet: Unique voice of color
KEYWORDS: “How dark?”
2. Basic Tenet: Social Construction Thesis
KEYWORDS: a white woman, a black boy
Practice Task 2
Key Word/Phrases How does it lead to a discussion of
racism?
1. “F- Asians, Go back to whatever Social Construction- displaying bigotry
the f- Asian country you’re from” by cursing and swearing at Asians
because he believes they do not belong
in that country.
2. Asian bigotry for which critics Intersectionality and Antiessentialism-
blame conservative Republican Assuming that all Chinese people are
officials who blame China for the infected with coronavirus and that
coronavirus pandemic. everyone who speaks with them could
become infected.
3. President Donald Trump has Ordinariness- The president
repeatedly used the terms “Kung discriminates against China by
flu” and “China virus” verbally referring to it as the "China virus and
and on Twitter Kung flu," which hurts people's
perceptions of Chinese and Asian people
in general.

Practice Task 3
1. As a fellow Filipino myself, I would get mad at that person who just keeps
on saying nonsense words, and shout at him telling him to leave.
2. While the person is the one that behaved appallingly, the government,
specifically Donald Trump is also responsible for this problem. Trump
repeatedly used the terms “Kung flu” and” China virus” verbally and online.
The man is a republican and was heavily influenced by Trump’s actions.
Countless Asian hate crimes are happening because of him, and he is
responsible for most of it.
Assessments
Since New Year’s Eve, the world has lived through countless days of COVID-
19. Billions of people have been affected and millions have died. Most people are
confined to their homes and stock markets have plummeted. Many people blame Asia
for this outbreak which is why a lot of Asian hate crimes have been reported in
western countries, especially in the U.S.A.
In this picture, the artist clearly shows their racist view on the matter.
Everything in the picture is filled with lots of hate and judgment among Chinese
people. From the way, the artist stereotypically drew the faces of the two men,
down to the way they stated how the COVID response of China is deemed
incompetent, which is not true. The government of China has responded decisively
with sweeping measures and has effectively controlled its COVID-19 epidemic
within a month of the Wuhan lockdown. The number of daily new confirmed cases in
China has declined to below 100 since 7 March 2020. Within the first seven days
of lockdown, the reproductive rate was believed to be reduced to almost below 1.
Subsequent modeling studies suggest that travel bans and city lockdowns delayed
the average transmission period and averted hundreds of thousands of cases across
China. Many people hate them just because they could find a way to point out
someone without even looking at their own mistakes and actions. Yes, the COVID-19
did first spread in China but that doesn’t mean you should hate all the Chinese
people and kill and hurt them. To add, hate crimes also occur because of this
kind of picture that influences people on doing things that hurt Chinese people.
Hate speeches, bigotries, racist editorials, and worse, a president that
discriminates and uses racist terms on Chinese people.
Overall, we should be careful what to post, say, write, and create when it
comes to talking about COVID-19 because we never know, those things you share may
influence other people to commit hate crimes. It has very dangerous consequences
and be mindful of our actions because Chinese people are human too. You don’t
have the right to discriminate and hurt them.
Reflection/Comments/Suggestions
1. The lesson I learned from this module is that we should stop the racial
discrimination. We are all born equal and we should not hate someone based
on their race. We should also teach and influence other people in a good way
and share our knowledge to let them grow as a better person.
2. I found the assessment difficult to understand.