ENGL 2104 FIRST TERM EXAMINATION

Suñiga, Julienne Rye C.

ryejulienne@gmail.com
Directions:

a. Use the references provided and do your own research to answer the
questions

b. Provide a list of references after the list of questions and use APA 6th Edition.

c. There is no word limit but make sure your answers are BRIEF and CONCISE.

d. Send a copy of the examination in the google classroom together with the analysis.

Q1. How does literature shape the mind of the students?

A1. Other than it widens the reader’s vocabulary and gives an idea about different writing
techniques, Literature shape the mind of the students because literature allows its reader to come
to different places without actually going in there and experience the culture of the place. Its story
also has ‘significant human experience that is relatable in real life that helps the readers
understand things and situation even
though they haven’t experienced it.
Q2. Explain: Literature should not be ‘exclusive’.
A2. It means that Literature should be for everyone. Any person who wants or can read should
not be stopped from doing so and the access should not be limited.
Q3. From your answer in Q2, why do you think so?
A3. Literature should not be exclusive because some of us have a same experiences, but different
views regarding with those experiences that is why a person cannot say what a book will do to
someone.
Q4. How does literature embrace the nuances of meaning and ambiguity of a language?
A4. Literature embraces the nuances of meaning and ambiguity of a language because the
confusion with words or sentences and slight difference in sound, meaning or appereance makes
literature valuable. The more literature is hard to understand by the readers because of nuance
and ambiguity, the more it gives the literary pieces an in depth and complex analyzation or
interpretation by the readers. The harder to understand, the more beautiful it is.
Q5. Describe one teaching methodology where problematizing is used to emphasize on the
importance of the student and not the text.
A5. Inquiry-based learning- it is a teaching method that is student centered wherein students plays
an active role. In this teaching method, students get the chance to ask questions and share ideas
and students learns the answer for their questions by allowing the students to explore the answers
to the questions by themselves.
Q6. Why is structuralism synchronic and not diachronic?
A6. Structuralism is synchronic and not diachronic because structuralism focuses on the
grammar, its rules and structures in which diachronic approach cannot be used because it studies
about the changes in languages over time while synchronic approach is study of language and

ENGL 2104: Teaching and Assessment of Literature Studies 1

how words or parts of language work together. Furthermore, De Saussure conceived of language
as system of signs (Zigma 1999:1-2; Eagleton 1983:96), therefore scientific study of language
needed a system as its point of departure (Davis&Schleifer 1991:121)
Q7. Explain: Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects.
A7. It means that individuals are always-already subjects. Meaning, we show our recognition to
someone or something by doing some material ritual practice of ideological recognition like
shaking hands. It also means that, us humans, even before born, already has something or
someone to be. Like bearing the Father’s surname and such.
Q8. Explain the death of the author in structuralism.
A8. As what Ronald Barthes said, “The birth of the reader must be required by the death of the
author”, it means that the authors real intention and meaning in mind for the text or piece he/she
has written becomes useless and irrelevant because of the readers different idea or perception
about the text. It is not about its origin but its destination- that is the death of the author.
Q9. In Russian Formalism, explain why aesthetics are lost through familiarity.
A9.Familiarity is direct to the point and does not use figures meter and wordplay and reality is
not disrupted which is why Aesthetics are lost
Q10. Define Russian Formalism through the explanation of Roman Jakobson and Victor
Shlovsky.
A10. Russian Formalism is a literary device that uses language where ordinary things with
ordinary meanings are made to look different by looking in a different lens. The initial perspective
was aesthecist, ahistorical, reductive and mechanistic.

Reference List

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-nuance-in-reading.html

(n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/marxism/modules/althusserideology.html
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/aesthetic-concepts-in-literature.html
Ambiguity: Definitions and Examples. (2017, September 16). Retrieved from
https://literaryterms.net/ambiguity/
Apparatus.", "ideological S. (2019). ideological state apparatus. Retrieved from
https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-
releases/ideological-state-apparatus
blogging. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://grichblog123.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/the-russian-formalist-
victor-shklovsky-re-interprets-literature-in-art-as-technique/
Guido, M. (2019, May 27). Inquiry-Based Learning Definition, Benefits & Strategies. Retrieved
from https://www.prodigygame.com/blog/inquiry-based-learning-definition-benefits-strategies/
Inquiry-based learning. (2019, September 7). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquiry-
based_learning
Ismail, M. (2019, July 24). Literature is the mirror of society. Retrieved from
https://gulfnews.com/general/literature-is-the-mirror-of-society-1.86134
Nordquist, R. (2019, August 7). What Is Synchronic Linguistics? Retrieved from
https://www.thoughtco.com/synchronic-linguistics-1692015

ENGL 2104: Teaching and Assessment of Literature Studies 2

Powell. (n.d.). One on One with Richard Ford by Dave. Retrieved from
https://www.powells.com/post/interviews/one-on-one-with-richard-ford
Roland Barthes: "The Death of the Author". (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://arthistoryunstuffed.com/roland-barthes-the-death-of-the-author/

ENGL 2104: Teaching and Assessment of Literature Studies 3

 ENGL 2104 FIRST TERM PAPER
Suñiga, Julienne Rye C.
ryejulienne@gmail.com
Paz Lotorena’s short story “Desire” tackles
about social issues which is still relevant and
timely. It is about how external beauty is
valued and appreciated over to the beauty
within. The story’s central theme is obvious
in the title itself- desire. Latorena presented
the story of a woman whose physical
appreance was a gift and a curse. The
woman’s physical appearance is a curse
because of how Latorena described the main
character:
She was homely. A very broad forehead
gave her face an unpleasant, masculine
look. Her eyes, which were small, slanted at
the corners and made many of her
acquaintances wonder if perchance she had
a few drops of celestial blood in her veins.
Her nose was broad and flat, and its nostrils
were always dilated, as if breathing were an
effort. Her mouth, with its thick lips, was a
long, straight gash across her face made
angular by her unusually big jaws.
And at the same time, it is a gift for the story
described the main characters body as:
But nature, as if ashamed of her meanness
in fashioning the face, moulded a body of
unusual beauty. From her neck to her small
feet, she was perfect.
Because of these qualities, the main
character started to hate her body while most
women admire to have the body like hers.
She hates her body because men only sees
her perfect body not her, women that was
good and pure as hers and some were loved
and some were homely as she was but did
not have beautiful bodies but were loved for
themselves. Because of that the main
character decided to hide her body to
remove the stares of men with an unbeautiful
light with their eyes.
ENGL 2104: Teaching and Assessment of Literature Studies
She started wearing long, wide dresses that
completely disfigured her. She gave up
wearing the Filipino costume which outlined
her body with startling accuracy. It took time
to make men forget that body. But after a
time they became accustomed to the
disfiguring dresses and concluded she had
become fate and shapeless. The main
character succeeded but her desire to be
loved is not fulfilled. She I nothing but a
homely face and apparently shapeless mass
of flesh. Because of her long nights spent
brooding all alone, she started to write and
continues to write because it made her forget
once in a while how drab her life was. Her
works got published which captured the
attention of, based on the story, a man from
the west:
He, the white man, coming from a land of fair,
blue-eyed women. When they decided to
meet personally, the man was shocked to
see her. Perhaps, he found it a bit difficult to
associate this homely woman with one who
could write such beautiful sketches, such
delightful letter. But the white man became
comfortable because she could talk rather
well. There was a light vein of humour, faintly
ironical at times, in everything she said. The
main character, then, thought that her
appearance a little to the man because of the
established friendship and because of that,
in their thrid meeting, she decided to reveal
the beauty of her body. In their fourth and
probably their last meeting, she, again,
displays her body. She wore a pale rose
Filipino dress that softened the brown of her
skin. That very same day, the desire of the
main character to be loved for who she is
dissapeared for the white man confessed: “I
love….your body.” He finished with a thick
4
voice: And the blue eyes flared with the
dreaded, hateful light.
Paz Latorena’s way of storytelling is
straightforward and repeats the words or
sentences but in this story, using Russian
Formalism, there are certain ways that
Latorena defamiliarized things.
One if these defamiliariation is how she
described a curvy, sexy body. In regular
basis, a sexy and curvy body is characterized
or described by slim waist, big boobs and big
butt but in this story it is described as:
From her neck to her small feet, she was
perfect. Her bust was full, her breast rose up
like twin roses in full bloom. Her waist was
slim as a young girl's, her hips seemed to
have stolen the curve of the crescent moon.
Her arms were shapely, ending in small
hands with fine, tapering fingers that were
the envy of her friends. Her legs with their
trim ankles reminded one of those lifeless
things seen in shop windows displaying the
latest silk stockings. It implies that her body
is unearthy but the unearthy body was
described as:
Hers was a body of a sculptor, athirst for
glory, might have dreamt of and moulded in
a feverish frenzy of creation, with hand
atremble with a vision of the fame in store for
him. Hers was a body that might have been
the delight and despair of a painter whose
feelings faltering brush tried in vain to depict
on the canvass such a beautiful harmony of
curves and lines. Hers was a body a poet
might have raved over and immortalized in
musical, fanciful verses. Hers was a body
men would gladly have gone to hell for.
The act of lusting over someone was also
defamiliarized. Instead of saying that men
drools over her body, it is:
men look at her with unbeautiful light with
their eyes- married eyes, single eyes.
The way she unfamliarized an American man
with the description of a man with white blood
ENGL 2104: Teaching and Assessment of Literature Studies
in his veins. Latorena did not directly stated
that the main character are failed to find
someone who will love her for who she is but
it is implied by the response of the main
character “you have just been yourself…like
other men.” For the concept, without using
defamiliarization, the situation of the main
character is such a pity because: For men
told other women that they loved them
looking deep into their eyes to the soul
beneath their voices low and soft, their hands
quivering with the weight of their tenderness.
But men told her that they loved her body
with eyes that made her feel as if she were
naked, stripped bare of their simple eyes to
gaze upon. They told her that with voices
made thick with desire, touched her with
hand afire, that scared her flesh, filling her
with scorn and loathing but using
defamiliarization, the men can love someone
as homely as hers it’s just that they really
admire her body: She wanted to be loved as
other women were loved. She was as good
as pure as they. And some of them were as
homely as she was. But they did not have
beautiful bodies. And so they were loved for
themselves. For the white man, without
defamilliarization, he also have been
captivated and admired her body for their
fourth and probably their last meeting he said
that: “I love…. Your body.” He finished with
a thick voice: And the blue eyes flared with
the dreaded, hateful light but with
defamiliarizing the story, the white man really
did like the main character, not because of
her delightful body but because of her wit: He
asked her to come out with him again. By the
shore of Manila Bay one early evening, when
her homely face was softened by the
darkness around them, he forgot that he was
a white man, that she was a brown maiden –
a homely and to all appearances, shapeless
creature at that. Her silence, as with half
closed eyes she gazed at the distance, was
5
very soothing and under the spell of her period of time but she also managed to tell a
understanding sympathy, he found himself story wherein beauty within, a real beauty is
telling her of his home way over the seas, often neglected because of physical
how he loved the blue of the sea on early appearance and standards.
morning because it reminded of the blue of
the eyes of the women of his native land. He
told her of his love of the sea, for the waves
that dashed against the rocks in impotent
fury, how he could spend his life on the
water, sailing on and on, to unknown and
uncharted seas.
“If I didn’t nobody would notice me with my
face and my … my figure,” she hated herself
for stammering the last words.
He looked at her impersonally, as if trying to
find some beauty in her.
“But I like you,” was his verdict, uttered with
the almost brutal frankness in his race. “I
have not come across a more interesting girl
for a long time.”
And lastly for the main character, without
defamiliarization, she is pitiful because she
did not have her desire- the desire to be
loved but with defamiliarization, the main
character stereotyped all men including the
white man:
And dimly the man from the West realized
that he had wronged this little brown maiden
with a homely face and the beautiful body as
she never had been wronged before. And he
felt sorry, infinitely so.
When they stopped before the door of her
house, he got out to open the door for her.
“I am sorry,” was all he said.
There was a world of regret in the eyes she
turned on him.
“For what?” she asked in a tired voice. “You
have just been yourself… like other men.” He
winced.
And with a weary smile she passed
within.The presence of the white man,
maybe American also symbolizes the
Western standards. Latorena showed
transition and the happenings during a

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ENGL 2104: Teaching and Assessment of Literature Studies 7