A WORLD of FICTION ANSWER KEY A World of Fiction Answer Key Twenty Timeless Short Stories Sybil Marcus PDF

A World of Fiction Answer Key
A WORLD OF FICTION
Twenty Timeless Short Stories
Sybil Marcus
ANSWER KEY
Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved
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A World of Fiction Ans wer Key
1 CAN-CAN Arturo Vivante (page 3)
Part 1 First Reading

A Thinking About the Story (page 6)
Answers will vary.
B Understanding the plot
1. The can-can is a dance.
2. He is a painter.
3. No, he isn’t.
4. He is going to meet Sarah, his lover.
5. No, she doesn’t.
6. They are both married to other people.
7. He hopes that she won’t come; he is impatient and nervous.
8. “Them” refers to the cigarette and the coffee.
9. He holds her in his arms and thinks about his wife.
10.He couldn’t think about his lover while he was with her.
11.Yes, she is.
Part 2 Second Reading

A Exploring Themes (page 6) Answers may vary.
1. The can-can represents pleasure, joy, and happiness.
2. The wife does the can-can because her child has asked her to, and also to show her
husband that she doesn’t really mind that he is leaving.
3. The dance makes him a little angry; he doesn’t want her to be doing it when he
leaves the house.
4. The husband expects his wife to do dull things: sewing, washing, or darning
children’s clothes. The wife wishes that he would stay home and help her with the
children, also that he would paint more. Neither one fulfills each other’s
expectations in this story.
B Analyzing the Author’s Style Answers may vary.
IRONY (page 7)
Five examples of irony:
The wife calls her husband Mr. Fix-it; she answers “brightly” when he says he is
leaving the house; he says “You’re glad to be rid of me” when he probably knows
she isn’t; he thinks “Ah, now there was some hope” that his lover won’t arrive
when she is late; he “suppressed a laugh” when in fact he is thinking of something
serious.
S YMB OL (page 7)
1. The can-can could symbolize sex, pleasure, happiness, and joy.
2. “. . . her legs are white and smooth, secret, as though he had never touched them or
come near them. Her feet. . . seemed to be nodding to him. She held her skirt. . .
attractively.”
3. The theme of longing and desire is highlighted by the dance.
C Judging for Yourself (page 8) Answers will vary.
D Making Connections (page 8) Answers will vary.
E Debate (page 8) Answers will vary.
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Part 3 Focus on Language

A Gerunds and Present Participles (page 9-10)
1. The paragraph that starts in line 36 contains 10 gerunds. Students should underline:
arranging, going, phoning, being, calling, falling, opening, getting, asking, setting
up.
2.
a. progressive
b. gerund
c. present participle
d. gerund
e. gerund
f. present participle
g. present progressive
h. gerund
i. progressive, present participle
j. present participle
3. Answers will vary. Possible answers:
Getting rid of old books is hard.
I said hello to the students, getting rid of my coat as I walked into the classroom.
I’m getting rid of that table next week.
I enjoy lingering at the beach after sunset.
He left the party slowly, lingering to say goodbye to every person he knew.
The leaves are lingering on the trees later this year because it isn’t cold yet.
B Building Vocabulary Skills (page 11)
1.
a. bread-and-butter = important and basic: Education is a bread-and-butter
issue.
b. by and large = in general: Health care is by and large better than it was 20
years ago.
c. cut-and-dried: = very clear; no questions possible: Some people think that
all math problems have cut-and-dried answers.
d. give and take: = flexibility: The students enjoy the give and take of
classroom discussion.
e. heart and soul = all of a person’s emotion or effort: He throws himself into
his work heart and soul; he never takes a vacation.
f. ins and outs = small details: After 30 years, she knows all the ins and outs
of the job.
g. open-and-shut = no discussion possible: The criminal was clearly guilty, it
was an open-and-shut case.
h. straight and narrow = morally correct way of doing something: He’s an
honest judge; always on the straight and narrow.
i. tried-and-true = tested over time: My grandmother always used tried-and-
true ways of cooking.
j. wheel and deal = negotiate or maneuver, not always completely honestly:
Most politicians have to spend a lot of time wheeling and dealing.
2. Definitions will vary. Words for paragraph completion:

The husband barely suppressed his astonishment as he watched his wife
dancing the can-can/ He looked at his watch and realized that he was lingering
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too long, so he retrieved his car keys and hurried out the door, hearing the
mockery in her laugh. He knew he had lost his detachment and felt that the
situation had become quite absurd. As he made his way to his rendezvous, he
realized that his wife’s unexpected dance was a subtle way of showing her true
feelings.
Part 4 Writing Activities

Answers will vary.
2 TH E STORY OF AN HOUR Kate Chopin (page 13)

Answers will vary.
B Understanding the plot (page 16)
1. She does it as gently as possible, in broken sentences and with veiled hints.
2. She knows that Mrs. Mallard has a weak heart.
3. He was supposedly killed in a railroad accident.
4. He was afraid that some other person might be less thoughtful about breaking the
news.
5. She wept immediately instead of being too shocked to understand.
6. It was spring.
7. All of the descriptions appeal to the senses (sight, smell, hearing).
8. The story says that she is “young” (line 30) but she is old enough to have a heart
condition, so she might be 40 or 45.
9. She feels free.
10.It is not stated directly why she was so unhappy, but there was a “powerful will
bending her” so we can assume that she felt trapped.
11.The comparison suggests that she feels powerful – like a goddess.

A Exploring Themes (page 17)
1. The season of spring suggests new life and renewal.
2. Her feelings are not totally negative: in line 51 we learn that she will “weep again”
when she sees him dead, and she remembers his hands as “kind.” In line 62 we
read that she “loved him – sometimes.”
3. She does not seem to have been happy. She felt trapped in her marriage, perhaps
without even realizing it.
4. She probably knows that her feelings are not completely normal or socially
acceptable.
5. The ending speaks of the “joy that kills.” Joy usually is associated with life, not
death.
B Analyzing the Author’s Style
EPIP HA NY (page 18)
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1. She gives a “piercing cry” at the moment she sees her husband, still alive, and
realizes that she is not free after all. The implication is that she is bitterly
disappointed that he is not dead.
2. (Students will be able to answer only if they have read The Boarding House.) Mr.
Doran remembers hearing Polly’s brother talk one night about what he would do
to anyone who showed disrespect to his sister. The memory makes him realize
that he has no choice but to marry Polly.
METAP HOR AN D SI MILE (page 18)
veiled hints, storm of grief, drinking in a very elixir of life = metaphors
her will was as powerless as two slender hands, she carried herself like a goddess =
similes
PERS ONI FIC ATION
Three examples of personification:
(line 30) “lines bespoke repression:” lines are not people; cannot speak.
(line 35) “she felt it, creeping out of the sky:” feelings are not alive and cannot
creep.
(line 41) “this thing was approaching to possess her:” the thing is not real and
cannot physically possess her
All three examples heighten the effect of the writing by making the feeling or
attributes described seem more powerful and real.
A Suffixes ( Note: some variation is possible for some answers)
Noun Verb Adjective Adverb

amazement amaze amazed amazingly
assurance assure assured assuredly
breath breathe breathy breathily
brightness brighten bright brightly
comfort comfort comfortable comfortably
composition compose composed composedly
dream dream dreamy dreamily
exhaustion exhaust exhausted exhaustedly
faint faint faint faintly
fear fear fearful fearfully
haste hasten hasty hastily
illumination illuminate illuminating illuminatingly
paralysis paralyze paralyzed paralyzingly
persistence persist persistent persistently
possession possess possessive possessively
revelation reveal revealing revealingly
significance signify significant significantly
strength strengthen strong strongly
terror terrorize terrifying terrifyingly
thought think thoughtful thoughtfully
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1. with
2. of
3. of
4. upon (on)
5. for
6. with
7. of
8. of
9. above
10.upon (on)
Part 4
Answers will vary.
3 EPICAC Kurt Vonnegut (page 23)

Answers will vary.
B Understanding the plot. (page 30)
1. He (it) was the biggest computer in the world, and did a better and faster job than
other computers.
2. EPICAC didn’t work out the way he was supposed to.
3. They wear a lot of shiny metal medals that glitter like brass.
4. The answer is not completely clear from the story, but EPICAC was less like a
machine than plenty of people. “That’s why he fizzled.”
5. She refuses because he is not romantic enough.
6. He had found himself; he was doing what he wanted to do.
7. She allows him to kiss her because she likes the poem he gives her.
8. She expects him to write more poetry for her. He does this, by getting EPICAC to
write the poems.
9. His second proposal is more romantic, and is done with poetry.
10.EPICAC no longer wants to be a machine.

1. The machine supplies the romantic, emotional side of the story. The man is almost
like a machine: colder, less feeling.
2. The narrator is lying to the woman he loves, and also to the machine by pretending
that he has written the poems himself. He risks problems in his relationship with
Pat if she ever finds out.
3. It is ironic that the machine has more genuine and warmer emotions than the human
narrator.
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4. “EPICAC” could be read as an antiwar story: the computer says at the end that he
doesn’t want to think about war. The narrator appears to have no interest in war; he
cares only about winning Pat’s love.
PERS ONI FIC ATION (page 31)
1. Ways in which the author humanizes EPICAC: he refers to the machine as “him”
rather than “it,” he says that EPICAC is less like a machine than plenty of people,
he has more of a relationship with EPICAC than with any of the other characters in
the story including Pat, he gives the machine human emotions of frustration and
grief, and refers to it as “dead” in the last line of the story.
2. The reader feels sympathy for the computer, perhaps even more so than for any of
the “human” characters. The ending, where the computer self-destructs, is sad.
3. The final line of the story makes it clear that the machine was “alive,” since only
living things can be dead. The fact that the last line is written in Latin is perhaps a
subtle reference to a more humanistic, liberal arts approach to life, as opposed to a
“colder,” more mathematical one.
COLLOQUI ALIS M AND HUM OR (page 32)
1. Ten colloquialisms rewritten in more formal language:
1. picking up a check = paying the cost
2. not a peep = not one word
3. to fizzle = to fail
4. the Brass = high-ranking military officials
5. one hell of a state = upset
6. crackerjack = skilled
7. sweep me off my feet = overwhelm me
8. stacked = has large breasts
9. floored = overwhelmed
10. you won’t do = you’re not good enough
2. The colloquial tone contrasts with the sometimes serious subject matter: for example
when the narrator refers to Pat as “stacked,” a word that would usually be slightly
derogatory.
3. The narrator uses slightly surprising and sometimes inappropriate language; for
example when he compares the complicated expensive computer to a vacuum
cleaner or a toaster, which makes him sound a little awkward.
4. He doesn’t really describe the first kiss at all: he says only that it took place in a
cubbyhole. In contrast, EPICAC’s poetry about a kiss uses poetic metaphor: “Love
is a hawk/a rock/a lion. . ..” which makes it sound powerful.
5. He implies that the reader wouldn’t understand his feelings for EPICAC; that the
reader would agree with the senior military officers who see EPICAC as a mere
machine.
6. The narrator says he is “choked up” (in tears), and calls the computer a sportsman
and a gentleman. He also refers to EPICAC as “his friend” and, at the end of the
story, “dead” which implies that the computer was once alive.
Part 3 Focus on Language (page 33)

A Lie and Lay : Correct Usage (page 33)
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1. laid
2. lying
3. lied
4. lay
5. laying
6. lying
B Building Vocabulary Skills (page 34) Note: the letter of the correct
ans wer is underlined.
1. a. pick up = learn b. = pay for
2. a. work out = resolve itself (intr.) b. = solve (tr.)
3. a. set up = arrange b. = say that you are
4. a. come out =to say, tell a story b. = to emerge, be revealed
5. a. burn out = become exhausted, give up b. = (literal) destroy through fire
6. a. turn away = reject (tr.) b. = ignore, look away from
7. a. take up = start (tr) b. = occupy time or space (intr.)
8. a. turn out = appear b. = extinguish
9. a. hang up = put down phone receiver b. = slow down
10.a. go on = continue b. = happen
IDI OM S C ONT AI NI NG B OD Y P ARTS (page 35)
1. have a leg to stand on = a strong legal or logical argument
2. at hand = coming soon
3. put your foot in your mouth = say something foolish, inappropriate, or rude
4. looked down their noses at = view with contempt
5. twist men around her little finger = make men do what she wants
6. see eye to eye = agree
7. turned a deaf ear = ignore, pretend not to hear
8. heart and soul = 100% effort
9. at the top of their lungs = as loudly as they could
10. pick each other’s brains = ask each other lots of detailed questions
Part 4 Writing Activities (page 36)

Answers will vary.
4 The Legacy Virginia Woolf (page 39)

Answers will vary.
1. He is surprised that she left all of her affairs and possessions in such perfect order.
2. He assumes that she died in a traffic accident because she wasn’t paying attention
when she crossed the street.
3. He thinks that she is upset about Angela’s death because Angela had been much
more than just an employer; she had been a friend.
4. He assumes that she needs money more than jewelry.
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5. Sissy Miller knows that Angela was having an affair with her brother, and she
knows that Gilbert doesn’t know this yet.
6. It refers to the first year of their marriage.
7. She was beautiful and he was proud to be seen with her.
8. He still thinks that he might have a future in politics
9. She felt idle and useless, and wanted to have some work of her own.
10.The two contrasting political ideologies are socialism and conservatism. (check)
11.She was surprised because Minnie was a servant.
12.Gilbert assumes that B.M. wanted to have an affair with Angela. (Answers will
vary.)

1. He expects her to worship him, follow him around, and not have any ideas of her
own.
2. She begins to want to have some work of her own, and she starts to question
conservative political and social views.
3. He can remember only his own speech, nothing about anyone else. This shows his
egotism.
4. He feels superior to working class people; he is scornful that B.M. “wasn’t used to
parlourmaids” (line 168) and offers to shake hands with Minnie.
5. B.M. is a shadow character who assumes increasing importance as the story goes
on: at the beginning Gilbert has no interest at all in him; then he gradually realized
that B.M. was his wife’s lover and that he was the reason she died.
P OI NT OF VIEW (page 47)
1. Gilbert doesn’t really know his wife, B.M, or Sissy Miller. Examples: he has no
idea that his wife’s death was not an accident. He doesn’t really remember who
Sissy Miller is, even when she comes to the house. He assumes, in his egotism,
that his wife was devoted to him, and can’t believe that she would have been
unfaithful to him until the facts become overwhelming.
2. His understanding of events has changed completely by the end of the story: when
Sissy Miller asks if there is anything she can explain, his answer, “Nothing!”
shows that he has understood the entire situation.
3. This perception is ironic because Sissy Miller knows so much more about Gilbert’s
situation the he himself does. She is in fact the soul of discretion, but his
assumption is that she is this way because she is not worthy of having any
important information, when in fact she knows everything.

Building Vocabulary Skills (page 49)
Answers may vary slightly:
Gilbert Angela Sis sy B.M

distinguished-looking childlike distressed distressed
narrow-minded distressed drab impertinent
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prominent lovely-looking soul of discretion soul of candour

trustworthy stubby
Additional possible adjectives:

argumentative compassionate compassionate compassionate
arrogant deceitful hard-working radical
bitter lonely loyal
hard-working modest
patronizing
vain
Additional possible adjectives: (Many adjectives are possible; these are some possibilities.)

proud passionate knowledgeable idealistic
conceited romantic competent passionate
impatient wistful wise impatient
blind

Answers will vary.
5 The Kugelmass Episode Woody Allen (page 51)

Answers will vary.
B Understanding the plot
1. He married her at least partly because she had some money, and because she “had
promise.” He can’t afford a second divorce.
2. The analyst thinks that an affair will not solve Kugelmass’s basic problems.
3. The dream might mean that he thinks his options are running out; that he doesn’t
have forever to try to find happiness.
4. He wants to have a French lover. And he doesn’t want to have to pay money to a
prostitute.
5. Rodolphe is from the landed gentry class: he has money and horses, and he is very
attractive to Emma
6. He thinks he is boring and not good enough for his wife.
7. She wants him to get her back into the novel or to marry her.
8. She spends too much money on room service.
9. She wants to get a job (perhaps on stage) or go to class. She is “convinced” that she
can act. (line 199).
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10.His wife suspects that he is having an affair. She has noticed that he is frequently
gone, and she thinks he is nervous.
11.The lovers do not kiss.
12.He is projected into an old Spanish language textbook.

1. They do not love each other; he thinks she is “an oaf.” They mope around their
apartment “like two pieces of old furniture.”
2. Women are presented as greedy and grasping. Emma wants only money and
excitement from Kugelmass, and Daphne is very unsympathetic: she has gained
weight since the marriage and says nothing nice to Kugelmass during the entire
story.
3. Emma is looking for thrills and excitement. She has always dreamed of being
rescued by a handsome stranger. She doesn’t seem to think about her husband at
all.
4. Kugelmass is a humanities teacher but does not seem to be very interested in
literature. When he begins to appear in versions of Madame Bovary that college
students are reading, neither the teachers nor the students seem to be very surprised
or interested.
5. The end of the story is ironic because Kugelmass was looking for romance and
excitement but is now permanently stuck in a dry and boring world of remedial
Spanish grammar.
DI AL OGUE (page 63)
1. The effect of the dialogue is ironic; the subject matter is serious but the choice of
words is very colloquial and full of slang, which makes it seem less serious.
2. Answers will vary.
CHAR ACTERIZATION (page 63)
1. They are flat characters because they do not learn anything or change during the
course of the story. Kugelmass still has the same unrealistic desires at the end of
the story as at the beginning.
3. The absence of descriptive writing means that there is really no “narrator;” we are
forced to judge the characters and the situation based entirely on what they say
rather than on what a narrator might tell us about them.
4. Answers will vary. Possible answer: Pat in the story EPICAC is a flat character;
she does not change from the beginning of the story to the end.
AN AC HR ONI S M AN D H UM OR (page 64)
1. Emma admires Kugelmass’s “leisure suit” (a usually very unattractive 20th-century
piece of clothing); she wants to hear about O.J. Simpson and the Academy Awards.
These are all things that would be completely meaningless to someone of Emma’s
time, and the contrast is unbelievable but funny.
2. He talks about the Academy Awards and fast cars as if a 19th-century
Frenchwoman would be able to understand such things. Again, the humor is in the
contrast between what would be possible and what Woody Allen pretends to expect
the reader to believe.
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A Verb s that Introduce Dialogue (page 65)
1. implored
2. yelled
3. snapped
4. whispered
5. mumbled
6. sighed
7. whined
8. squealed
1. d
2. a
3. f
4. j
5. h
6. e
7. b
8. i
9. g
10.k
11.c
1. He was up to his neck in work, so he stayed late at the office.

2. I thought the movie would be said, but everything turned out OK in the end.
3. really let herself go.
4. They wanted to go out, but the plans fell through so they stayed home.
5. It’s good to know that a lawyer is on the level before you pay anything.
6. The woman said that she was late getting home because she was held up at the
office.
7. I’ll give you my cell phone number so that we can hook up with each other if we
don’t see each other at the airport.
8. She puts up with her noisy children because she loves them.
9. The boy poured his heart out to a total stranger because he was so unhappy.
10.I don’t know what time the guests finally showed up, but I went to bed at 11.
11.The police made every effort to get to the bottom of the crime.

Answers will vary.
6 An Intruder Nadine Gordimer (page 69)

Answers will vary.
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1. He treats her like a child or a doll.
2. There are many differences between them: age, experience, financial status (he has
more money than she does).
3. It is not clear where he is, but he has been “dispensed with,” so the implication is
that Marie’s mother left him.
4. James flatters her. He is attractive, charming and considerate. She also likes it that
his photo is often on the social page.
5. She is sexually attracted to him. He is probably the first man who has ever touched
her.
6. James seems to have money; he has a nice car and clothes. He has enough for the
luxuries of bachelor life, but he lives in a shabby room.
7. The South Africans are intimidated by his upper-class British public school accent
and think that it will be good for public relations.
8. She is flattered to be thought of as a free-thinking artist, and decides that she really
doesn’t mind.
9. It happens with no warning or planning.
10. He has a bad relationship with at least one ex-wife and is constantly fighting
with her over furniture.
11. The implication is that the owners of the restaurants and bars (who are not
South African) are tired and would like to go to sleep but that they stay up for the
sake of business – the South Africans who don’t know enough to go to sleep when
they are tired.
12. Answers may vary. Perhaps he doesn’t recognize Colin because he was
very drunk the last time the met.
13. The destruction in each of the three rooms is very personal: the intimate
objects of Marie and James’s lives have been strewn around.
14. She realizes that he will never understand what happened; that he is
incapable of understanding.
15. Answers may vary. She comes to understand that she is the adult in the
relationship, and that James will always be a child.

1. Answers may vary. The “intruder” may have been James himself, who destroyed
his home in a drunken rampage. Explanation: We already know from other
elements of the story that James tends to forget things he has done: he doesn’t
remember his friend Colin, for example. No other character has been introduced
who could have done the damage, and there is no sign of forced entry into the
house.
2. At the beginning of the story, Marie is a child and almost a doll. We learn very little
of what she thinks at the beginning. By the end of the story she has become an
adult.
3. He views women as playthings, pets, toys, or dolls. He doesn’t seem to have
realistic relationships with them: he doesn’t get along with his ex-wives and refers
to them contemptuously as “gorgons.” There is a hint that he may also see Marie
more negatively sometime in the future when he calls her a “sugar-tit tart.”
Although we never learn what Marie’s exact age is, it is clear that she is barely out
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of childhood when James seduces her. He frequently calls her a rabbit or a

marmoset; he doesn’t seem to realize that she is a person.
4. Gordimer seems to have contempt for the society. The people James knows don’t
know when to go to bed and stay out all night drinking, the South African
businessmen respect James for superficial reasons of his accent and class, Mrs.
Clegg makes a living painting pictures of the children of the “horsey set.”
5. Evil is homegrown and all around the characters of the story – they are, in fact, the
evil themselves. The observation that it evil had come out of the walls emphasizes
the fact that evil surprises and sneaks up on people.
IM AGER Y: Simile and Metaphor (page 78)
1. The metaphor is “the cross-fire of private jokes.” The two components are the
cross-fire: bullets flying, and the private jokes, or stories told mainly to exclude
other people. The effect is to paint a picture of an almost vicious and frightening
event.
2. “The smoke will brown those ears like gardenia petals.” The simile is extended into
a metaphor when James says, . . . “she’ll wilt:” normally only flowers can wilt.
3. The simile suggests that he is kissing the inside of her wrist. It heightens the erotic
atmosphere of the nightclub by reminding us that the night club is hot and James’s
lips on Marie’s wrist might be cool.
4. The instruments are compared to the stomping of a boot or a foot, which hints at the
pounding of sexual intercourse.
5. He caresses her “like a kitten.” He insists that she sit on his knee, as a child would.
6. “. . . “the high dark cell” sounds like a prison cell.
7. She is compared to a “wretched pet monkey shivering in a cold climate.” This
shows that she is like a pet that has been abandoned by its owner.
8. (Answers will vary) Marie is “like a bush-baby” (line 2) and James calls her “his
frail little marmoset” (line 28) which heightens the theme of her helplessness and
vulnerability at the beginning of the story. He uses “simple words with which some
shy pet is persuaded to drink a saucer of milk” (line 64) with her, again heightening
the theme of Marie as somewhat less than human.
Part 3 Focu s on Language

A Adjective Clauses
P U NCTUATI ON: Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Claus es (page 83)
1. (One example) . . . the sort of pair with whom a father couldn’t be imagined. . . .
(circle pair)
2. There are many many adjective clauses in this section.
3. (One example) . . .a number of vague jobs on the periphery of influential business
groups, where the cure-speaking experts felt themselves hampered. . . (line 78)
4. (One example) . . . he taught her to do all the strange things [that] she would not have
guessed were love-making at all, and that he seemed to enjoy so much. (line 66)
5. (Restrictive) . . . he still appeared to be one of those desirable men who can take
anything they want of life. . . (line 82)
(Nonrestrictive) . . . . about this man, whose place was in a dinner-jacket among the
smart set. . . “ (line 40)
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6. “His ruddy, clear-skinned face and lively eyes blotted out the man [whom] her mother
heard talked about. . . “ (line 45). The omitted whom is the object of the verb.
7. No, this is a noun clause. He remarked that. . . . This is grammatically similar to the
simple noun clause: I said that I am hungry.
1. , who
2. whom
3. which
4. where
5. , where
6. that
7. , which
8. whom
9. , which
10. when
1. d
2. j
3. g
4. h
5. b
6. i
7. e
8. a
9. c
10. f
1. The movie was so touching that I cried long after it was over.
2. He felt wistful when he looked at the photo of his grandmother when she was
young.
3. Many large corporations have very rigid policies about vacation and time off.
4. They lived in a shabby but comfortable old house.
5. A doctor must always be circumspect if he discusses his patients with each other
6. Sometimes people reveal intimate information to strangers on planes because they
know they will never see them again.
7. The opera singer was so bad that some of the audience members were jeering.
8. I was aghast to hear how much they spent for dinner at a fancy restaurant at a time
when they don’t have much money.
9. Sometimes teenagers can be generous with each other, but sometimes they are
downright malicious.
10. She looked pale and wan after several weeks without going outside.
Part 4 Writing Activities

Answers will vary.
7 Powder Tobias Wolff (page 89)
15

Answers will vary.
B Understanding the Plot (page 93)
1. She was angry because on the previous visit, the boy’s father had taken him to a
nightclub.
2. He was afraid of getting home late.
3. He wanted to leave.
4. He might not be able to take the boy out again.
5. If he hadn’t waited, the trooper would have either told him he couldn’t go past the
barriers or arrested him for trying.
6. He is trying to pretend that he and the boy are equally at fault for the problem of
being late. He wants his son to be on his side.
7. He was frightened. We know this because he clamps his hands between his knees
to keep them from shaking.
8. He doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t want to acknowledge that his son is
frightened.
9. The father doesn’t care if he gets the boy home late. He seems to be irresponsible
and thoughtless.
10. Yes, they did. The father charmed the trooper into letting him continue
without any problems.
11. He did enjoy the experience. He finally decided to “stop moping” and
began to enjoy himself.

1. He realizes that he has to trust his father; in fact he has no choice. He begins to
enjoy the experience of driving through the fresh beautiful snow, and he thinks his
father is a great driver as well as a great talker.
2. The parents are separated but not yet divorced: the mother has not yet decided to
“make the split final.” (line 111)
3. The father uses the term affectionately, as a way of trying to get closer to his son.
The boy uses it sarcastically when he is criticizing his father, as a way of distancing
himself from him.
4. The son seems more responsible than the father: more concerned about safety and
about getting home on time. The father seems like a little boy.
5. At the beginning of the story he is angry with his father. At the end of the story he
has a grudging appreciation, admiration, and trust – a kind of love -- for him.
B Analyzing the Author’s Style (page 94)
REPETITION AN D ALLITERATION (page 94)
1. . . . “hissing like sand and still we skied.” The repeated s sounds mimic the sound
of snow falling.
2. “ . . . drifted into our slipstream and were swept away. . . The repeated s sounds
mimic the sound of snow falling.
3. Snow in lines 10-11: frightening and violent. In lines 66-72: snow everywhere, all-
powerful. Lines 92-93: snow thinning out, becoming less frightening. Lines 113-
123: snow as “powder” = beautiful.
C Judging for Yourself (page 95)
16
Answers will vary.

D Making connections (page 95)
Answers will vary.
E Debate (page 95)
Answers will vary.

A Participial Phrases (page 96)
1. . . . hissing like sand, [circle snow]
2. . . . clapping my mittens and wishing I were home. [circle I]
3. . . . waiting for us at the end of our ride. [circle troopers]
4. . . . buying a little more time [circle my father]
5. . . . rumpled, kind, bankrupt of honor, flushed with certainty [circle my father]
1. Having promised hand on heart to take good care of me, my father wouldn’t give
up.
2. Sticking to him like white on rice, I somehow made it to the bottom without sailing
off a cliff.
3. Having gone to the pay phone at the back of the diner, he joined me again.
4. Knowing we would get caught, I was resigned to it.
5. Looking at my father flushed with excitement at the end of the ride, I actually
trusted him.
Dangling Modifiers (page 98) Answers may vary slightly.

1. Fretting horribly, the boy watched the snow whirling around him.
2. Taking out his notebook to write a ticket, the trooper seemed scary to me.
3. Sipping his coffee, the trooper looked at me.
4. Driving through the trees, we saw only a few feathery flakes on the windshield.
5. Angered by my father’s behavior, my mother saw divorce as inevitable.
Sentence Fragments (page 99)
Why not? This was one for the books. It was like being in a speedboat, only better.
You can’t go downhill in a boat, and it was all ours. It kept coming: the laden trees, the
unbroken surface of snow, the sudden white vistas. Here and there I saw hints of the road,
ditches, fences, stakes, but not so many that I could have found my way. I didn’t have to.
My father was in his forty-eighth year, rumpled, kind, bankrupt of honor, and flushed with
certainty. He was a great driver. He was all persuasion, no coercion. He had such subtlety
at the wheel, such tactful pedalwork. I actually trusted him. The best was yet to come –
switchbacks and hairpins impossible to describe. I can say only this: if you haven’t driven
fresh powder, you haven’t driven.
aid and abet = help, usually to do something negative

bag of bones = very thin
cold comfort = no comfort
double-dealing =cheating
far-fetched = hard to believe
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highhanded = rude, inconsiderate

life and limb = dangerous: risk life and limb = risk dying
mind over matter = change of attitude
shipshape = in excellent condition
wishy washy = indecisive
1. bag of bones
2. shipshape
3. double-dealing
4. life and limb
5. aid and abet
6. highhanded
7. wishy-washy
8. far-fetched
9. cold comfort
10. mind over matter
PREP OSITIONS (page 100)
1. around
2. to
3. with
4. on
5. into
6. up
7. up
8. over
9. between
10. for

Answers will vary.
8 Mother Grace Paley (page 103)

Answers will vary.
1. The story is told through the eyes of an adult daughter.
2. She was worried what would become of her daughter.
3. The were born in Russia; we know because she says that she and her husband
“saw them [Communists] already in 1905.
4. She was a Communist, or at least a Communist sympathizer.
5. She is referring to the first Russian revolution.
6. He was studying to be a doctor.
18
7. He was proud because he was a foreigner, and presumably had to learn the material
in his second language, English, from the American professor.
8. She must have been able to afford to quit her job and stay home after her husband
began to succeed professionally.
9. It made him very tired.
10. They listened to music. It is not clear how her mother’s perfect pitch would
have helped her enjoy this activity; perhaps the husband just wanted to flatter her so
that she would stop talking and listen.

1. Her mother was somewhat gruff and impatient, but the daughter clearly loved her.
2. When they are young they enjoy talking to each other, but after the father is old and
tired from work, he just wants quiet at the end of the day.
3. They had more money later on: they could afford “comfortable leather chairs,” and
the mother was able to quit her job.
4. She implies that they suffered.
5. The adult narrator misses her mother terribly, while the child was probably
resentful of hearing so much nagging.
6. The mood is mournful and nostalgic. She misses her mother.
1. The story contains four flashbacks. The all begin at the beginning of a paragraph
and end at the end of a paragraph.
2. Several of the flashbacks mention that the mother is standing a doorway. This
device links them, and also give the impression that the mother didn’t sit down
much; that she was always working.
3. The effect of the rapid flashbacks is to increase the sense of immediacy. It is as if
the narrator is overcome by memories that come in quick succession.
4. The repeated sentence is the father’s “I’m tired.” The repeat increases the emphasis,
and makes him sound more tired.
5. Before second repetition of “I’m tired,” we hear the father speak for the first and
only time in the story.
C Judging for yourself (page 106)
Answers will vary.
D Making Connections (page 107)
Answers will vary.
E Debate (page 107)
Answers will vary.

A Tenses Expressing and Referring to the Past (page 109)
1. behaved/had been behaving
2. had achieved/have achieved
3. was listening/listened
4. have been talking/had been talking
5. have returned/returned
6. worried/had been worrying
7. didn’t hand in/hadn’t handed in
8. ran around/had been running around
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9. quit/had quit
10. was looking for/had been looking for
11. were studying/have been studying
1. manifesto
2. senselessly
3. perfect pitch
4. long for
5. hands in
6. meaness
7. issued
8. anatomy

Answers will vary.
9 A Short Digest o f a Long Novel Budd Schulberg (page 113)

Answers will vary.
1. He compares her to a wood sculpture.
2. It refers to the window of a nursery in the hospital where newborns are held up for
their parents to see.
3. No one has ever been mean to her.
4. It is different because the daughter depends on her father to catch her when she
jumps from the table.
5. “It” refers to the mussing of Billy’s hair.
6. This is the only afternoon that he can spend alone with his daughter.
7. Billy is aggressively unchildlike, malicious, arrogant, and insensitive.
8. His daughter seems to be happy to see Billy. She doesn’t share her father’s opinion
of him.
9. Billy convinces the little girl to jump from the table, but unlike her father Billy steps
back and allows her to fall to the floor.
10. He compares her to a parachutist whose chute had failed to open.
11. Now she knows treachery and fear. She is also furious at Billy.
12. He is angry with her because when she loses her innocent trust in the world,
he loses the illusion that he can protect her.

1. The story is only three pages long, but the themes of betrayal and loss of innocence
are often present in much longer books.
2. He loves her partly because she is still innocent and unhurt by the world.
20
3. A comparison could be drawn between the loss of innocence in a more general

sense, as occurs in this story, and the loss of sexual innocence.
4. The game is a source first of pleasure and then of anguish for the child. For her
father, it is symbolic: it reinforces his idea that he will always be there to catch her.
When Billy betrays her and she loses her innocence, the father loses something as
well.
5. Billy represents the outside world, a threat.
IM AGER Y: Simile and Metaphor (page 118)
1. The father sees his daughter as a perfect work of art. The idea at the end of the
paragraph that a work of art can be nicked or damaged foreshadows the actual
damage that occurs to the little girl’s sense of the world by the end of the story.
2. He says that her words are like good music. This continues the image of the child
as a perfect work of art.
3. The metaphor is of their voices as music: the girl’s treble of musical laughter against
Billy’s premature baritone. There is a hint of sexual imagery here, which reveals
the father’s fear of Billy as a future sexual predator.
4. The metaphor is that sweet promises become lies and are the unwashed dishes in
the sink. Promises/lies are being compared to dishes. This shows that the father is
already thinking of a darker, future time when the girl will hear promises and lies
from men.
5. “She is a virgin island in a lewd world.” The image of the girl as an untouched
island show that the father does not want to think that his daughter will one day
become a sexual being, a woman.
6. The paragraph contains a simile: The girl is being compared to an adult woman
(“stand up and act like a big girl”).
C Judging for yourself (page 119)
Answers will vary.
D Making Connections (page 119)
Answers will vary.
E Debate (page 120)
Answers will vary.

A Prefixes (page 120)
1. Answers will vary. Some possible answers:
untie (un =take apart, do away with)
impatient (im =not)
amoral (a = without)
irresponsible (ir = not)
inconsiderate (in = not)
illiterate (il = not)
disinterest (dis = not)
misunderstand (mis = not)
preview (pre = before)
resend (re = again)
noncombatant (non = not)
maladjusted (mal = badly)
embolden (em = cause to become)
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2.
a)
The father can’t reassure his daughter after she falls from the table.
b)
The girl becomes embittered after what happens to her.
c)
This kind of disillusionment may be an inevitable part of growing up.
d)
The father dislikes Billy.
e)
Billy will probably grow up to be an immature adult.
f)
At the end of the story the perfect girl has become slightly imperfect.
g)
Billy treats her irreverently.
h)
He is an insensitive boy.
i)
The father makes a misstep when he leaves the two children alone in the room.
j)
Some people might think that his extreme adoration of his daughter is unnatural.
B Practice with Similes and Metaphors (page 120)
Answers may vary. Some possible answers:
1. mother tiger
2. an angel
3. new snow
4. hammer
5. mean/snake
6. bird
7. a fox
8. tearful/baby
9. victim
10. clear/glass
1. He remembered the nails of pain he felt on seeing her falling. (compares pain with
nails)
2. He felt a storm of love flooding his heart whenever he thought of his daughter.
(compares love with a storm)
3. He was shocked that her trust could shatter so easily. (compares trust with glass or
something breakable)
4. She lay there, her petal mouth drooping visibly, as he flew to her side. (compares
her mouth with a petal)
5. Billy’s hyena laugh grated on his exposed nerves. (compares Billy to a hyena)
C Building Vocabulary Skills (page 121)
(Circle the following words)
1. unblemished (other words have to do with things becoming dirty or broken)
2. treachery (other words have to do with purity)
3. rocked (other words have do with things being broken)
4. giggling (other words have to do with negative emotional reactions)
5. undeceived (other words have to do with lost trust)
6. profundity (other words are emotions that people can feel)
7. sculpture (other words have to do with wood)
8. sturdy (other words are types of voices)
9. exhilarate (other words are negative activities or emotions)
10. malicious (other words are attitudes of excessive pride, not meaness)

Answers will vary.
22
10 The Rocking Horse Winner D.H. Lawrence

(page123)

Answers will vary.
1. The family lives beyond its means; they spend more than they can afford, so that
there is always a shortage of money even though they are not poor.
2. She blames the father. No, she is not correct.
3. She says that you can lose wealth, but if you have luck you can get more money.
4. He likes horse races.
5. Basset is a gardener. He had been Uncle Oliver’s servant when they were both in
the army.
6. Probably he is lonely, and somehow doesn’t trust the other members of his family.
7. He begins to take Paul seriously when he finds out how much money he is winning
on betting on horses.
8. They send writs because she has a lot of debt.
9. She is working to earn money.
10. The birthday check does not solve her problems; no amount of money could
solve her problems since they come from herself and not from external
circumstances.
11. She disapproves of it. It has caused problems in her family.
12. She doesn’t seem to show any real love for him. She says bad things about
his father (that he is “not lucky”) and seems always to be sad and bitter. She does
worry about him (calls home when she is out to check up on him, and comes
upstairs to see him when she returns home.
13. It isn’t clear what actually killed him. It seems that he died of his obsession.

1. Eyes can show sanity or madness: Paul’s eyes “blaze” at his mother right before he
faints. Also it is as if no one in the family can really see the truth of the situation:
that there is a child who is far too worried about adult matters.
2. One supernatural element is that Paul somehow gets racing tips from his rocking
horse. Another is that the house “whispers.”
3. Social class is very important to the story. The family’s financial problems are
largely because of their desire to appear richer than they are, to live beyond their
means. Also there are hints that the gardener is somehow lower than the family and
therefore not to be completely trusted.
4. Answers may vary. All of the adults are to blame for his situation: his mother for
making him so fearful and so obsesses with “luck,” Basset and Uncle Oliver for
helping him bet, his father for failing to protect him from the others.
5. The father is absent. We never hear a word that he says; he is a shadow figure who
does not or cannot prevent his wife from poisoning his child and making him
overly worried about adult matters.
23

S YMB OL (page 137)
1. The rocking horse symbolizes racing (racing with real horses is at the core of the
story) but also luck (Paul depends on the horse to bring him luck) and wisdom (the
horse supplies the names of the winning horses). Ultimately, the horse indirectly
causes Paul’s death: he rides to exhaustion and collapses.
2. The horse is a cause of Paul’s isolation (lines 104-105: his sisters are afraid to
speak to him) and of his death (line 469, where the horse is “madly surging.”)
3. The symbol of the rocking horse fits nicely with the racing theme. Also, a rocking
horse is traditionally a childhood toy that belongs to a time of innocence, not a
means of death, so its presences as a symbol of destruction and death is ironic.
4. The symbolic importance of money is that the mother yearns for it, as does her son,
but that it ultimately not only does not bring happiness but indirectly causes his
death.
F ABLE (page 138)
1. Many fables center around children. They also involve magical elements, such as a
rocking horse that could give racing tips.
2. “There was a woman who was beautiful” sounds very much like the classic
beginning to most fables: “Once upon a time. . . “
3. (Answers may vary.) The moral of the story is that the pursuit of money is not
worthwhile as the sole reason to live, also that money cannot buy happiness.

Part 3 Focu s on Language (page 139)

A Proverbs
Answers will vary.
Answers will vary. Some possible answers:
Situation: Susan was taking a test.
Sentence: Susan racked her brain to try to think of the right answer.
Situation: The thief stole something from a store when no one was looking.
Sentence: Instead of admitting to his crime, he tried to brazen it out when the police
arrived.
Situation: There was a horse race.
Sentence: The gray horse ran in full tilt from the beginning of the race, and won.
Situation: I’m telling you something that I don’t want anyone to know.
Sentence: I hope you understand that this is a secret, and that you shouldn’t let it go
any further.
Situation: My father didn’t like my sister’s new husband.
Sentence: When he first met him, he pursed his mouth tight.
Situation: Mary was working day and night to finish the project at work.
Sentence: She was careful to take some time to relax so that her nerves didn’t go to
pieces.
Situation: Paul is trying to quit smoking.
Sentence: Sometimes he wants a cigarette, but he fights the desire might and main.
Situation: Her rich old grandfather just died and left her a lot of money.
24
Sentence: She’s eighty thousand to the good.

Answers will vary.
11 The Boarding House Jame s Joyce (page 143)

Answers will vary.
1. Her husband drank, took money from the till, and ran up a lot of debts. He also
fought with his wife in front of the customers and tried to buy bad meat. They did
not divorce.
2. The saw her as a figure of great authority. The term is accurate: she kept very strict
rules in her house.
3. He was a tough man. Details: he used bad language, came home late, knew which
horses to bet on, and usually won fights.
4. One of the sheriff’s men was trying to go out with her.
5. She hoped that Polly would find a suitable husband.
6. None of the men that Polly met wanted to get married; they were only trying to have
a good time.
7. She wants Mr. Doran to marry her daughter. She is confident that this will happen.
8. The implication is that both of them understand the situation so well that there is no
need to talk about it, even though there is no “open complicity.” The situation
changes the morning after mother and daughter do have a frank discussion about
what is going on, and Polly understands perfectly what her mother is doing.
9. Cons: Polly sometimes speaks with bad grammar, she has a disreputable father, and
her mother’s boarding house has a mixed reputation. Also, he feels that he has
been manipulated.
Pros: Polly is thoughtful; she warmed up his dinner for him when he came home
late, and he thinks he might possibly love her.
10. Mr. Leonard is Mr. Doran’s employer. He thinks of him because he is
imagining being called in to speak to him should Mr. Leonard hear of the affair.
11. He decides that he as no choice but to marry Polly when he remembers the
night that her brother Jack made threats about another man who spoke carelessly
about her.

1. We learn that drinking was very common although not necessarily approved of.
We learn that women were expected to marry and had few other options in life. We
learn that men tended to take advantage of women and settle differences with their
fists.
2. A cleaver deals with meat swiftly and brutally, but cutting it. Mrs. Mooney deals
with the moral problem of her daughter swiftly and brutally, but letting Polly and
Mr. Doran know in no uncertain terms that they must get married.
25
3. Answers may vary. Both Polly and Mr. Doran are victims: she because she has no
option but marriage, and he because he is forced into a marriage which he might not
have chosen.
4. (Line 58) Polly knows that her mother is watching her, but it doesn’t change her
actions. (Line 111) Mrs. Mooney knows that she will get her way. (Lines 125-
140) Mr. Doran knows that he has no choice but to marry Polly; he is caught.
5. Answers may vary. Possible answers: No choice. Caught. Snared by
circumstances.
TONE: Irony and Humor (page 151)
1. It is ironic because Polly has gotten into plenty of trouble on her own.
2. Mrs. Mooney is in fact being rather cruel to her daughter, as a cleaver is to meat.
3. She is not outraged: she is coldly practical and finding a “solution” to the problem
of what her daughter should do with her life.
4. Jack Mooney is not a highly moral character himself; he drinks and he fights.
5. He is critical of Polly in his thoughts (she is “common;” she uses bad grammar, his
family will look down on her) and yet he doesn’t seem to be all that unhappy with
his situation of having been somewhat tricked into the marriage.
6. He thinks that it is “not entirely his fault,” but the language describing Polly’s
appearance shows that he must have been quite attracted to her.
7. Answers may vary. (Line 95) Mrs. Mooney considers herself an outraged mother
and thinks that a “reparation” must be made when in fact she has gotten exactly
what she wanted and is the victor in this situation.
IM AGER Y: Adjectives (page 152)
1. The adjectives create an atmosphere of sensuousness and intimacy.
2. They appeal to the senses of sight, touch and smell.
3. He feels happy anticipation.
OX YM OR ON S (page 153)
1. We learn that she looks very chaste but is in fact sexually experienced.
2. The oxymoron is “wise innocence.” It shows that Polly may appear innocent but is
old beyond her years.

A Practice with Oxymorons (page 154) Answers will vary; possible answers:
The teacher showed a cruel kindness when he told the student that the exam results
were so bad that she would have to study day and night to pass the class.
I was happy to see my long-lost cousin again, even though it was at her mother’s
funeral, an event which became a sort of sad celebration as we talked to each other.
The town was fiercely peaceful after the bombings because everyone was too
frightened to come into the street.
The honest thief took my money but left my driver’s license, which would have
been very hard to replace.
26
A loud hush descended upon the room as we all waited for the president to speak.
He works so hard that he has become a human robot, without any emotion.
B Adjectives (page 154) (Circle the adjectives listed.)
1. ragged
2. clever
3. continued
4. direct
5. uncaring
6. red
7. sharp
8. slight
9. unwilling
10. complex
1. pass the time away
2. keep things to oneself
3. settle down
4. bear the brunt of
5. look down on
6. go for
7. be had
8. make up for
9. be done for

Answers will vary.
12 My Oedipus Complex Frank O’Connor (page 157)

Answers will vary.
1. He compares the visits to Santa Claus.
2. It was the most peaceful part of his life.
3. They discuss the problems of how he is to spend his day.
4. He wakes up at dawn. This is too early for his parents.
5. The family is Catholic. We know because the story mentions going to Mass.
6. Larry had been praying for his father to come home from the war. He is
disappointed because now his father is home and it is not how he imagined it would
be.
7. He would like his father to disappear so that he could be alone with his mother
again.
8. His parents have destroyed his schemes, and he compares this to smothering a child
before it has been able to grow up.
9. He is worried about trying to find a job.
27
10. It is probably less than one hour.

11. He probably was having a bad dream about the war.
12. His father doesn’t hit him hard: he does it with a “lack of conviction.”
13. The story is not clear about this point. He might be at the local pub; he
might be so worried about money for the new baby that he feels the need to distract
himself
14. He thinks the new baby is “a calamity.”
15. His father, like Larry, feels somewhat left out because his wife is so
interested in the new baby.

1. Both paragraphs mention Christmas.
2. At the beginning he is a very young child with many illusions and misconception
about the world. His initial contact with his long-absent father is disappointing, but
by the end of the story they have learned to get along.
3. The jealousy expresses itself in several ways. First, of course, since the story is
from Larry’s point of view, we hear what he thinks about his father. Second, his
father is angry and resentful about being waked up. Third, his father hits him.
Fourth, he tells his mother that he wants to marry her.
4. He has never had to share his mother’s attention with anyone else till his father
comes home from the war.
5. She continues to let Larry come into bed with her even though it is clearly not what
her husband wants, but she disciplines Larry when he wakes up his father or plays
with the objects he has brought back from the war.
6. The turning point is the birth of Larry’s baby brother, who “steals” the mother’s
affections from her husband and makes Larry and his father both outsiders.
HUM OR O US EF FECTS (page 169)
1. (Line 185) Larry and his father “conduct a series of skirmishes” to compete for the
mother’s affections. (Line 304) “In every possible way he was less winning than
I.” Both examples are humorous because the narrator Larry sees himself as the
father’s equal, while the reader knows that he is not.
2. Larry considers that the badges, knives and button sticks that his father has brought
back from the war are “toys.” He finds it odd that his parents sleep in the same bed
(line 175) with no regard to his father’s health.
3. When he goes on a walk with his father and is irritated that his father stops to chat
he pulls at his coat and doesn’t realize how insignificant he is to his father’s plans.
4. (Line 80) Larry asks a question with “as great a show of indifference” as he can
muster, not realizing that his parents are unaware of his concern. Larry states that
he “sized him up”—the language implies judgment, but the father is completely
unaware that his son is judging him.
5. He first thinks that his mother has “come to her senses” and appeared in Larry’s
bed, but he then realizes that it is his father who is “mad as hell,” and that it is “his
turn now.

28

A Denotation and Connotation (page 171)
Answers may vary, particularly for the connotation. Some possible answers:
WORD DENOTATION CONNOTATION

father male parent security, protection
candlelight light from a candle romance, love
slamming loud closing anger
Santa Claus mythical Christmas character jolly, friendly, red suit, fat
shadow dark place where light is danger, mystery
blocked
mountain large body of earth big person or problem
a bottle of container of sparkling wine celebration, festivities
champagne
dawn time of day when the sun hope, new beginning
comes up
hissed sound of air escaping cat or snake’s noise when angry
feather bed quilt or comforter warmth, safety, security

(Answers may vary, particularly for the connotation. Some possible answers for the most
common idioms:)
A: Did you see that man who came in just now?
B: No, I didn’t. Did you size him up?
A: Yes, I did. He looks friendly.
A: Why was your cousin disappointed with his college?

B: Well, the school is very prestigious, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. He’s had
some bad teachers.
A: Well, did he enjoy studying chemistry?

B: No, actually he didn’t really take to it.
A: I couldn’t stay till the end of the movie. How did it turn out? (line 332)
B: It had a happy ending.
A: What happened to John? He looks terrible.

B: Oh, didn’t you hear? He couldn’t stop drinking, and his wife turned him out of the
house. (line 380)

Answers will vary.
13 The Model Bernard Malamud (page 177)
29

Answers will vary.
1. She asks if he has dealt with them before, and if he has a studio.
2. She wants to be sure that he is a serious painter and not a sexual pervert.
3. He wants to look at a young woman’s body.
4. He is a widower.
5. He is an amateur painter.
6. He talks too much. He says that his wife is dead. He asks her if she would like to
change in his bedroom.
7. It is a more neutral space than the bedroom.
8. She accuses him of not knowing how to paint, and of having asked her to come
for his own personal reasons that have nothing to do with painting.
9. She asks him to take off his own clothes, makes a quick and competent sketch of
him, and then defaces it with black marks.
Part 2 Second Reading (page 182)

A Exploring Themes
1. The story takes place in spring. We know this because Mr. Elihu mentions that the
foliage is starting up, and that he likes spring. Also, the tree outside his window is
just beginning to show leaves, and the writer mentions that the model is wearing a
raincoat “though it was a clear spring day.”
2. Mr. Elihu expects that the model will socialize with him or at least talk with him.
She expects that he will paint her in silence. He is disappointed that she doesn’t
want to chat, while she is made uneasy by his desire to do so.
3. He makes small talk about the weather. She does not respond, but asks where he
wants her to change out of her clothes.
4. Yes. He is lonely. He wants to look at a young woman’s body again, and he
hopes to have a little friendly conversation.
5. The meaning is not completely clear, but he probably means that he should have
tried to get along on his own a little longer before hoping for companionship or
conversation from a stranger.
6. She calls him a “fake.” The expression could refer to his lack of painting skills or
to his motives for asking for a model: that he wanted companionship rather than a
model to paint.
7. This is not completely clear from the story. She may have been trying to make him
feel as bad as he made her feel. Whether she “succeeded” or not depends on the
definition of success. Certainly by the end of the story both characters feel bad.
8. Answers will vary. Possible answer: The fact that he has forgotten her face shows
that he really wasn’t looking at her face. It could also show that he is old and losing
his memory.
INFERENCE
1. She doesn’t completely trust him.
2. He is lonely; she is not.
3. Perhaps she is poor and cannot afford a spring jacket, perhaps she is trying to
protect herself.
30
4. She is covering herself because she feels angry and uncomfortable. Her belt is
“tight.”


A Euphemism (page 184)
1. h
2. e
3. i
4. c
5. f
6. j
7. d
8. a
9. b
10.g
1. getting old
2. birth
3. have sex
4. be killed
5. go to the toilet
6. drunk too much
7. rich man who supports a younger person, usually a woman
8. marriage that happens because the woman is pregnant
9. slow students
10.euthanized, killed
1.
a. approximately
b. on the point of, just before doing something
c. concerning
2.
a. outside of the house, in the street
b. survey, look around
c. change of opinion or direction
d. cause to happen
e. speak indirectly or unclearly
f. [used for something that] should happen now
3.
a. about-face
b. beat about the bush
c. about time
d. look about
e. bring about
f. out and about
31
4.
a. thoughtfulness/small amount of money
b. agreed upon/began to live in or on
c. breath/imposition, inconvenience
d. pause/rupture
e. begun to appear/reveal one’s homosexuality publicly
f. unemotional, uninvolved/goal
g. attention/money charged to pay for a loan
h. draw, especially add to an existing drawing/substitute

Answers will vary.
14 Disappearing Monica Wood (page 189)

Answers will vary.
1. The man is the narrator’s husband.
2. They are having sex. They do not enjoy it.
3. Lettie is a friend. She advises the narrator to leave her husband.
4. The image is that the narrator is so huge that she will displace all of the water in the
pool and leave a clear path to the bottom; when the waters of the Red Sea parted,
people were able to walk on the floor of the sea. The description would not be
accurate at the end of the story because she has lost weight.
5. After her first swimming lesson, she eats “a cake.” This means the whole cake.
6. She was jealous because the narrator was now thinner than she was.
7. “That” refers to losing weight.
8. They are real people, not TV characters, and they are strangers.
9. She hates Sunday because the pool is closed.
10. He predicts that she will not keep the weight off. He might say this
because, statistically, most people do gain back the weight they lose, or he might
just be cruel
11. They are not close. The daughter-in-law has “an ugly disposition.” She
might not get along with the narrator because she is embarrassed by her mother-in-
law’s weight.
12. She “went crazy.”
13. He wants to suggest that she is crazy.
14. It refers to the middle of the time when she was losing weight. The narrator
considered having relationships with other men.
15. The meaning is not completely clear: it could be a synonym for losing
weight, or for dying.

32
1. At the beginning of the story she feels powerless. She endures sex, averting her
eyes, and scoffs at Lettie’s suggestion that she might be able to leave her husband:
“. . . who would want me.” At the end of the story she feels more powerful: “He
doesn’t touch me . . . “
2. Perhaps she has no self confidence after so many years of being fat and unhappily
married. Perhaps she is old – she is, after all, old enough to have a son who is
married.
3. The ending is not clear. Perhaps she is dreaming of dying: she wants to “vanish
like a needle into skin.” She refers to herself as “almost water” which seems to
reinforce the idea of leaving this earth. On the other hand, she seems happier,
unlike someone who would be contemplating death.
4. Losing weight could be compared to diminishing or disappearing.
5. Water is clear, clean, cool, and frees up the narrator to escape her body and feel
happy in it. It could symbolize either freedom or death.
ELLIPSI S
1. They are having sex.
2. at least; could be more
3. She wouldn’t dare expose her body to a new man.
4. She has breathed in water.
5. The water glares under the light.
6. He is not handsome either.
7. Lettie can’t believe that the narrator would think about anything other than losing
weight.
8. He is attractive
9. There are other men in the world.
10. You’ve lost weight.
11. It is true despite what you think or feel.
IM AGER Y
1. The image is auditory, and hints at the thud of a body as a person commits suicide
by jumping from a great height.
2. The image is visual, and suggests a dying animal.
3. The image is visual, and suggests people who are not only thin but also mean.
4. The image is both visual and auditory, and suggests that the woman is so thin that
even her voice is “skinny,” and, again, somewhat mean.
5. The image is visual and tactile, and suggests a butcher shop or operating room.
6. The image is visual, and suggests crying.
7. The image is visual and tactile, and suggests a woman who is in good physical
shape but not pleasant to touch.
8. The image is tactile, and suggests disappearing.
9. The image is visual and tactile, and suggests a vividly colored bathing suit plus
flesh that is as hard as a jewel to touch.
10. The image is tactile, and suggests weight, effort, and death.
11. The image is tactile and visual, and suggests pain and death, as well as more
painless disappearance.
33

A Building Vocabulary Skills (page 196)
1. granite
2. disposition
3. uppity
4. flops
5. ripple
6. goggles
7. was writhing
8. glaring
9. dangling
10. fragments
lowered entered
floated stayed on the surface of the water
scarred marked, old, worn out
transparent see-through, invisible
vanish disappear
Since she was feeling nervous, she tried to lower herself into the transparent water,
looking anxiously at the chipped, scarred tiles. But after a while her fears vanished, and
she felt as if she were floating on air as she swam successfully from one end of the pool to
the other.

Answers will vary.
15 Mis s Brill Katherine Mansfield (page 199)

Answers will vary.
1. The time of year is early autumn. We know because there is a faint chill in the air,
and the leaves are beginning to fall from the trees.
2. She regards it as if it were alive.
3. It has been a long time: the fur has been stored in moth powder.
4. It sounds louder and gayer than usual.
5. They are not speaking. She compares them to statues.
6. He rejects her.
7. She compares the scene to a play in a theater, and she sees herself as an actress.
She initially sees the young couple as a hero and heroine.
8. She comes once a week.
9. She teaches English.
10. She is sad.
34
11. She probably doesn’t have much money. Her fur is old, her room is small
and dark, and a slice of honey-cake once a week is a treat.

1. Autumn symbolizes the beginning of the end, sadness, perhaps death.
2. Miss Brill treats the fur as a living thing, which of course it is not: the fact that she
sees it that way emphasizes that she is alone in the world, without family or even a
pet. The fur has “dim” or “sad” little eyes, and it is slightly worn out – she needs to
repair damage to its nose – and it is also slightly macabre: a dead animal made into a
garment and preserved with its features intact.
3. Her thrill in eavesdropping tells us that she is lonely and doesn’t talk to many
people. It also gives us sympathy for her: we see her as someone who is interested
in life and in other people.
4. She finds them disappointing because they don’t talk, but of course she doesn’t talk
much either – in fact she doesn’t say even one word in the story.
5. The “ermine toque” is alone, as Miss Brill will be at the end of the story.
6. She has lost interest in the things that usually give her pleasure at the end of her
Sunday excursion: the slice of honey-cake which might or might not contain an
almond. We find out that her room is small and dark, and when she takes off her
fur and puts it back in the box, she no longer seems to take any pleasure in it.
Afterwards she thinks she “heard something crying” and it is possible that it is she
herself who might be crying.
S Y NECHDOC HE (page 205)
1. head of cattle stand for numbers of cattle
2. heart and soul means the life, the essence, the most important part
3. earn my bread means make a living
4. strong point means advantage
5. rhyme means poetry
6. the brains means the person who thought of or who directs the project
7. all hands means all of the people
8. have a roof over our heads means have a place to live
SI MILE (page 206)
1. The air has a faint chill “like the chill from a glass of iced water before you sip.”
Air is compared to iced water.
2. There are many similes in this description – at least five. The band is like someone
playing “with only the family to listen;” the conductor is “like a rooster about to
crow;” the old couple sits “still as statues;” the young mother is like a “hen;” the
entire scene is “like a play.” All of these similes, along with the metaphors, add
color and vividness to the description.
3. The young girl compares the fur to a fried whiting – a dead fish about to be eaten.
This contrasts with Miss Brill’s view of her fur as a living thing.
4. Her room is like a cupboard. The simile emphasizes her loneliness, lack of money,
and isolation.

35

A Verb s of Movement (page 207)
LEG MOVEMENTS HAND/ARM MOVEMENTS
stroke
flap
clasp
parade
stagger
dab
flick
patter
hobble
trot
Miss Brill dabbed her forehead with her handkerchief as she sat watching the scene
unfold in front of her. As the people paraded before her in twos and threes, she stroked her
fur absentmindedly. She felt sorry for the old man who came hobbling forward, clasping
his cane tightly. She watched as a puppy trotted up to the playing children and wagged its
tail. An anxious mother rushed up, flapping her arms wildly to shoo it away, but the
puppy, unafraid, went on lightly pattering after them. Miss Brill smiled when a toddler
began staggering uncertainly toward her, then gasped as she witness the man in gray flick
the cigarette ash off his jacket while he brutally turned his back on the woman in the ermine
toque.

embroidered: decorated with fancy sewing stitches
My grandmother embroidered many beautiful pillowcases.
slender: thin
Mary stays slender even though she eats a lot.
drooping: falling over from fatigue or lack of water.
Those flowers are drooping; it’s time to throw them away.
dignified: quietly elegant
Mr. Morgan remained dignified even when people criticized him.
queer: odd
John and Mary are a bit queer. It’s hard to tell what they’re really thinking.
frail: fragile; especially in a medical sense
The frail old woman tottered over to the park bench and sat down, exhausted.
resolute: determined
Brave people remain resolute even in difficult circumstances.
trembling: shaking, especially from fear or cold
The little dog began trembling when the large dog barked at it.
dashing: elegant, sophisticated, and stylish
She looked great at the concert; she was wearing a simple black dress with a
dashing hat.
36

Answers will vary.
16 Teenage Wasteland Anne Tyler (page 209)

Answers will vary.
1. He is noisy, lazy, and disruptive, and he won’t respond in class.
2. He ha been cutting classes and smoking, and the school thinks he has been drinking
beer.
3. He says that Donny has no serious emotional problems, but is going through a
difficult period in his life.
4. She is upset. She wonders what she has done wrong as a parent.
5. She thinks he is too young to be a family man, and she is a little suspicious of him.
6. He compares it to a prison.
7. Miss Evans always tries to deal directly with the parents. She wants Daisy to go
back to helping Donny with his homework, but this does not happen.
8. She learns that he has been married and is now divorced.
9. The school found beer and cigarettes in his locker.
10. Daisy blames Donny. Cal blames the school. Donny says that another
student put the cigarettes and beer in his locker.
11. The story takes place over a period of three months.

1. The paragraph shows us what Donny was like as a small child. The language
shows, since the story is from Daisy’s point of view, how much she loved him.
2. Amanda gets less and less attention from her parents; Daisy doesn’t have time to
listen to stories of her day.
3. Cal is “successful” in that he seems to have a large number of students who
continue to see him and whose parents must be paying him. The story makes it
clear, however, that the students are not really being helped: the kids are just
“hanging out, like a club” (line 209).
4. Daisy seems to be slightly indecisive: she believes the last person she has talked to
about what the solution to Donny’s problems might be. In that way she might be
contributing to his problems.
5. Donny’s father is not a major character in the story. He does come to the school
conference when he is asked to, but his comment that his son should “watch his
language in front of his mother” doesn’t seem to be particularly helpful.
6. The basketball in Daisy’s dream ends up in an imaginary “wasteland:” an empty
yard littered with last year’s leaves, that mirrors the real wasteland in which Donny
is probably living as a teenage runaway.
P OI NT OF VIEW: Third-person Narration
37
1. The narrator has limited omniscience. Daisy doesn’t know what Donny or Cal or
any other character is thinking.
2. Daisy’s point of view dominates the story.
3. Since the narrator is his mother, we see him from a very personal point of view, that
of someone who loves him but also knows his faults and shortcomings.
4. Answers will vary. If the story were told from Donny’s point of view, Cal would
become more sympathetic, and probably Donny’s parents would get much more
blame for Donny’s problems.
INFERENCE Answers may vary.
1. We can infer that the teenage years are difficult and bleak.
2. It seems that on some level he knows he needs help, and he wants to let people help
him.
3. They don’t have a lot of money.
4. It doesn’t seem to her that rock music belongs in an atmosphere where children are
supposed to be learning how to do better in school.
5. She does not think he is effective as a tutor. She thinks that Cal has made Donny
dependent on him and caused him to believe in his tutor even though the tutor isn’t
really helping.

A Conditionals (page 223)
P: If you aren’t home by twelve tonight, you will be punished. (R)
T: Why are you always so mean to me? Everybody else is allowed to stay out much
later. And I know that even if I get home early, you will be on my back. (R)
P: No, we won’t. And remember, if you had come home on time last Saturday, we
wouldn’t have argued. (U)
T: You’re always looking for an excuse to punish me. If you weren’t so unreasonable,
I would listen to you more. (U)
P: Perhaps if you cooperated with us more, you would see that we aren’t so difficult to
get along with. (U)
T: This is getting us nowhere. If I were you, I would trust my child. You’re both
jerks! (U)
P: If this conversation continues, we will say even more hurtful things to each other.
So let’s stop now.

1. shows up
2. take over
3. take on
4. gone along with
5. hang out
6. kicked out
7. gotten along
8. getting rid of
9. been in on
10. goofing off
38

Answers will vary.
17 Like a Winding Sheet (page 229)

Answers will vary.
1. Mae and her husband have a warm and close relationship. He thinks about
getting up before her to make breakfast, and they joke and laugh together first
thing in the morning. He speaks to her “affectionately,” and enjoys the smell of
her talcum powder as it drifts in from the bathroom.
2. Mae says he looks as if he is wearing a winding sheet, which would mean that
he looks like a dead person. The comparison gives an ominous foreshadow of
what will happen later in the story.
3. He doesn’t like it.
4. Yes, she is. She doesn’t want to go out on Friday the 13th.
5. She addresses him with too much familiarity: “Hey, Johnson!” She complains
about the behavior of the other workers to him, tells him he’s the “worst of all,”
and uses the offensive and insulting epithet “nigger” to him.
6. He can’t bring himself to hit a woman.
7. He doesn’t like working at night. The atmosphere is noisy and chaotic. His job
forces him to walk when he could as easily do the job driving a cart. He has to
use his own time waiting in line to get his pay envelope.
8. He feels the rage in his hands.
9. He doesn’t want to get into a crowded subway.
10. They live in Harlem.
11. The girl has run out of coffee, but he thinks she doesn’t serve him because he is
black.
12. She calls him a nigger.

1. Aspects of Mr. Johnson’s life are like death to him.
2. It describes in detail the brutality of the working conditions.
3. Each of the women offends Mr. Johnson in some way. In fact their “offenses”
are not equal: the first woman, the forewoman, is genuinely offensive; the
second woman is just brusque and impolite, and Mae is only joking
affectionately with him when he loses his temper, but his mental state has
deteriorated by the end of the story, and a small thing sets him off.
4. Mr. Johnson is not naturally violent. He controls his impulses twice in the
story.
39
5. The story is told from Mr. Johnson’s point of view. This is important in the
restaurant because it helps the reader understand why Mr. Johnson didn’t
understand what happened.
6. His anger is a slow poison that continues to eat away at him until he finally
beats up Mae.
COLLOQUI ALIS M AND DI ALECT (page 240)
1. “After two years you ought to be used to it,” Mae said.
2. “I shouldn’t go out of the house.”
3. “Every guy who comes in here always has an excuse.”
4. “And the African Americans [black people] are the worst.
5. “You have the right to be angry with me, but I’m not letting anyone call me
nigger.”
6. “Oh, forget it,” she said. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
IM AGER Y (page 240)
1. The lights are “enticing:” they draw the reader into the restaurant.
2. The image appeals to sight: the flame is alive and happy, unlike the atmosphere in
the factory.
3. This appeals to smell, hearing, and touch.
4. This appeals to sight and smell.
5. This appeals to taste and smell, and lets the reader imagine the effect of the coffee.

A Adverbial Clauses
P U NCTUATI ON OF AD VERBIAL CLAUSES (page 243)
1. And he was late for work again because they spent fifteen minutes arguing. . .
(reason)
2. If he had done that, his hands would have felt good now – relaxed, rested.
(condition)
3. What he wanted to do was it her so hard that the scarlet lipstick on her mouth
would smear and spread over her nose. . . (result)
4. “Hello, babe,” she called out, as soon as he opened the door. (time)
5. Although Mae was exhausted at the end of the day, she always folded her clothes
neatly over the chair. (concession)
(Answers will vary.)
1. Although he wanted to. . .
2. . . . . because he knew he had to.
3. If he could do it, . . . .
4. . . . so insulted by the women that he snapped.
5. . . . .when he came home.
1. rocking
2. sagged
3. snarl
4. bunches
5. twisting
40
6. knotted
7. froth
8. strike
Answers will vary
17 The Lily -White Boys (page 247)

Answers will vary.
1. The story takes place on the Upper East Side of New York City.
2. The Follansbees live on Park Ave. They have beautiful antique Christmas
ornaments, a cut-glass punch bowl, and a maid. The Colemans live in the same
neighborhood (they can walk home) and have an actual house instead of an
apartment. Their belongings are described in detail and are also very luxurious
(jewelry, Limoges jar, silver spoons and trays).
3. He means that many people have burglaries.
4. They broke the lamps and other things, and left a burning cigarette on the table.
5. He is talking about what usually happens during a burglary.
6. (Answers will vary; possible answer: ) . . .that nothing will turn up.
7. She has forgotten about them and remembers how beautiful they made her feel
when she sees them on the floor. She wants to distract herself from what just
happened. She wants her husband to see her in them, and to forget what just
happened.
8. The stop in the Bronx is to drop off the TV and hi-fi set.
9. There are at least two. We know that one of them has light hair and has been to
prison.
10.Yes, the burglars escaped.
11.We learn that the Colemans have each other.

1. The first part, at the Follansbee’s Christmas party, sets the scene for the luxurious
milieu in which the Colemans live. The second part, where they discover the
burglary, tells what happened. The third part, where the objects talk, tells their
future reaction to the event.
2. The candles are beautiful but dangerous; Mr. Follansbee has to stand by with a
bucket of water while they are burning. The Colemans’ house and lifestyle are
beautiful and luxurious but also carry a risk: if you have things, people can take
them away from you.
3. They show that she is capable of ignoring the bad thing that has just happened to
her. There is glass in the rug, but she enjoys trying on her old dresses anyway.
4. She lets him do the talking to the police. She tries on the dresses (acts) while he
watches (reacts).
41
5. The objects are personified in order to give us information about the Colemans that
we would not necessarily understand from dialogue.
6. Of course they are troubled by the burglary, but they will be able to move on and
get over it; they already know that it will turn into a story. The luxury and comfort
of their lives goes beyond material things: they have inner resources as well as outer
ones.
ALLUSI ON AN D C ONN OT ATION
Allusion
1. They sing Christmas carols, drink punch, and enjoy a traditional Christmas party
with friends.
2. Mrs. Follansbee warns that the punch “isn’t as innocuous as you might think,”
implying that some people might get drunk. The candles on the Christmas tree,
though beautiful, are dangerous and illegal. As the Colemans walk home, they see
the bleak scene inside a drugstore where there are harsh lights and people try to
make up their minds to buy last-minute gifts.
Connotations
3. The Colemans’ life is lily-white and pure in that they are such basically happy
people that they won’t be permanently affected by this momentarily unpleasant
event.
4. The story is full of references to the rich society in which both families live: their
neighborhood, their beautiful houses and clothes.
SETTING AN D ATM OS P HERE
1. There are at least seven different settings: the Follansbees’ house inside, the
Follansbees’ house outside, the streets of Manhattan, the Colemans’ house on the
first floor, the Colemans’ house on the next two floors, the Colemans’ bedroom, the
interior of the thieves’ van.
2. The Follansbees’ and Colemans’ houses are both opulent and filled with beautiful
objects, but the Colemans’ house is of course much changed after the burglary: it is
in disarray and filled with broken things. The streets of Manhattan have no snow,
an ominous reference to the “lily-white” of the story’s title. The interior of the
thieves’ van is not really described, although we know that it has false license
plates.
3. The atmosphere in the Follansbees’ house is festive and happy; the Colemans’
house is unhappy and broken, although only temporarily; the streets of Manhattan
are bare and cold, with disembodied voices singing Christmas carols and locked
storefronts.
4. There is a contrast between the first and second houses, and the transition between
these two themes of unbroken and broken opulence is foreshadowed by the brief
glimpse of the streets of Manhattan.
5. The scene functions as a transition between the good connotations of “lily-white” at
the Follansbees’ house and the negative ones at the Colemans’ house.
6. Adjectives in lines 43-56: eerie, grim (ly), queer

A Appo sitives
42
1. Appositives: the hardy tin soldier, the drum, the nutmeg, and the Man in the
Moon. The appositives describe the word ornament and are set off by dashes.
2. Appositives: , not right somehow, not the way it usually felt. The effect is to
create a feeling of unease.
3. Appositives: boxes containing hats, evening purses, evening dresses sheno
longer had occasion to wear The appositives add additional information about
the Colemans’ wealth and status.
4. Appositive: the black taffeta with the bouffant skirt, the pale sea-green silk with
bands of matching silk fringe, all her favorite dresses that she had been to fond
of to take to a thrift shop, and that had been languishing on the top shelf of her
closet. The appositives refer back to them and one after another, and reinforce
the feeling of wealth and plenty: she has so many beautiful dresses.
5. Appositive: a story they tell sometimes at dinner parties. . . The appositive
reinforces the idea of the robbery as an unpleasant but ultimately not very
important event in the Colemans’ lives.
B Placement of the Subject
1. The implied subject is “they” (The Follansbees). The actual grammatical subject
would be the big Christmas tree but as the text points out, the sentence has a
dangling participial phrase, which makes the meaning slightly less clear. Of
course a tree cannot ignore laws; only people can.
2. The subject is soft yellow candlelight
3. The subject is “you.”
4. The subject is Those that liked to sing.
5. The subject is a cigarette.
6. The pronoun refers to the Chrysler sedan.
BASE F OR M P AST TENSE P AST P ARTICIPLE
break broke broken

buy bought bought
choose chose chosen
draw drew drawn
forget forgot forgotten
grind ground ground
hang hung hung
know knew known
lie lay lain
put put put
sing sang sung
string strung strung
swing swung swung
take took taken
wear wore worn

Answers will vary
43
19 The Catbird Seat Jame s Thu rber (page 261)

Answers will vary.
1. He is planning to kill Mrs. Barrows and leave a cigarette in her apartment as a
false clue.
2. It tells us that Mr. Martin is very meticulous about his job.
3. He describes her voice as “quacking” (a duck) and “braying” (a donkey). The
animals are both loud.
4. A batter with three balls and no strikes on him cannot lose.
5. It means that no one will suspect his intentions, including Mrs. Barrows.
6. He accuses of her of persistent attempt to destroy the efficiency and system of
his office.
7. She met him at a party.
8. He decided on November 2, 1942.
9. He should follow his routine so that no one will suspect him of doing anything
wrong or unusual.
10. The red herring is the cigarette butt. Its purpose is to distract any possible
investigator into thinking that the criminal was a smoker.
11.He is afraid that she will notice that he looks odd.
12.He wants to avoid leaving fingerprints.
13.First he can’t find a weapon, and then he gets distracted (perhaps a little drunk?)
when she offers him a drink.
14.He has the idea of saying outrageous things to Mrs. Barrows so that she will
repeat them back to Mr. Fitweiler and sound crazy.
15.He first decides to consult a psychiatrist, and then, on the psychiatrist’s
recommendation, to send her home.

1. He sees himself as a prosecutor or a judge. The image of the gavel reinforces
this role.
2. He is poking fun at the work relationship of boss to secretary, or of higher-up
worker to more clerical help. Mr. Martin is clearly a clerical worker even
though he is a man; Mrs. Barrows has more power at the office than he does.
3. The story is funny because Mr. Martin’s image of himself is clearly not the
same as the world’s image of him. We, the readers, can see this but he, the
narrator, cannot.
4. It can be inferred that Thurber was a traditionalist: he seems sympathetic to Mr.
Martin’s desire to hold onto old files.
5. He makes them both seem like reasonable, rational, hard-working men, in
contrast to the wild and rather inappropriate Mrs. Barrows.
UN DERSTATEMENT AND H UM OR
1. Project refers to a serious potential crime, murder.
44
2. He is referring to his own indecision. He might also have said that he begins to
lose his nerve.
3. When Roberts tells Mr. Fitwiler that Mr. Munson’s department has been “a
little disrupted,” he really means that Mrs. Barrows has caused enormous
problems. Mr. Fitwiler’s response that the ideas require a little seasoning is
also an understatement. He might well have said that the ideas were terrible but
that he wasn’t going to change them, and that Roberts should hold his tongue.
4. (Answers will vary: possible answers:)
a. “I drink to the health of our venerable superior Mr. Fitwiler.
b. “I will be under the influence of an illegal drug when I murder the old
gentleman.”
c. “I am in an advantageous position.”
5. Answers will vary: possible answer: She might have said, “That crazy little guy
came over to my house last night and really flipped out; you should call him in
here and give him a good dressing down.”


A Noun Clauses
1.
a. It was fortunate, he reflected as he passed on to the important charges
against Mrs. Barrows, that he had stood up under it so well.
b. The noun clause relates to the clause It was fortunate.
c. That he had stood up to the gibberish so well was fortunate.
2.
a. “Why, I even believe you like the woman,” Miss Paird, his other assistant,
and once said to him.
b. that
c. object
3.
a. two noun clauses. It was at this point that the door to the office blew open
with the suddenness of a gas-main explosion and Mrs. Barrows catapulted
through it.
b. that, after and
c. It was at this point
4.
a. You may describe what you did, after leaving the office yesterday, Martin,”
he said.
b. The noun clause relates to the clause You may describe.
c. It is the object.
45
5.
a. There are no noun clauses in the sentence.
6.
Answers will vary. Possible answers:
Mr. Martin realized that he wanted to kill Mrs. Barrows. (object)
He knew who she was and where she lived.
She didn’t know that he didn’t like her, and if she had known, she would have had
no idea why he didn’t like her.
It was unfortunate that they worked in the same office.
That she lived in a house was already known to him. (subject)
B. Building Vocabulary Skills

1.
a. worked out (exercised
b. ran into (met by chance)
c. turn you over (denounce you; give you to)
d. went over (reviewed)
e. ran into (collided with; hit with his car)
f. worked out (had a successful ending)
g. stood up (rose to their feet)
h. turn you over (physically move you from one side to the other)
i. has stood up (not collapsed)
j. went over (was successful)
2. (Answers will vary. Possible answers.)
He was a red-blooded patriot who would do anything for his country.
My long-lost cousin showed up at my doorstep out of the blue last week. I
almost didn’t recognize him.
The company has been doing well; this year it’s in the black.
My sister has a green thumb; her garden is beautiful.
I never buy that paper. It’s nothing but yellow journalism: exciting to read but not
necessarily true!
My brother is a white-collar worker, but I prefer to work with my hands, which is
why I became a carpenter.
3.
The judge formally read the charges to the defendant. “These are serious crimes,
not mere peccadillos, he said sternly. “You could even get the death penalty. At this,
the courtroom erupted in noisy protest. “Order in the court,” shouted the judge as he
hammered on his table with his gavel. The prosecuting attorney then began his
examination of the first witness.
“Your honor,” interjected the defense counsel, I wish to enter an objection.” The
prosecutor is harassing this person and is showing a blatant disregard for the rules.”
“I will sustain the objection,” said the judge. “Now let’s get on with the case. I
want the summing up by the end of the week at the latest so that we can all get home
in time for the holidays.
Part 4 Writing Activities (page 278))

Answers will vary
46
20 Everyday Use Alice Walker (page 279)

Answers will vary.
1. They have a yard that is made of hard clay and no real windows in the house.
The narrator mentions slaughtering animals herself and cooking the fresh meat
as soon as the animal is dead. She talks about how there is no real breeze in the
house, which lets us know that it is small and simple.
2. Dee is educated and beautiful: Maggie can read but only barely, and is badly
scarred from a fire. Dee dresses well; Maggie still looks like a farm hand and
dips snuff.
3. Dee is stylish; her mother is not. Dee is fashionably thin; her mother is fat. Her
mother likes orchids; Dee thinks they are “tacky.” Dee is educated.
4. She stands and stares at the burning house, showing no emotion.
5. She is not correct; Dee wants to take pictures with the house in them and
romanticize the old times. She just doesn’t want to live in the house, and would
probably like her mother and sister to leave as well.
6. The answer is not completely clear from the story. Perhaps he was tired of
Dee’s “faultfinding,” perhaps he was attracted to the cheap flashiness of the city
girl.
7. She (or perhaps her companion) are attempting to erase the traces of slave-
owning culture from their lives and return to more African names.
8. Her mother doesn’t really like him and thinks his name is silly. She wonders if
he is a barber, and she is probably offended when he refuses to eat the food that
she has prepared.
9. Dee likes it. Hakim-a-barber does not.
10.She wants the butter churn because it is quaint and old and will connect her to
her family, but she doesn’t know much about its history.
11.She now appreciates them and wants to take two of them away with her.
12.She means that they have moved on to modern life.

1. A central theme in the story is the conflict between tradition and modernity.
Maggie will probably use the heirloom quilts in an everyday way, whereas Dee
would make them into museum pieces.
2. The TV show depicts an idealized mother-daughter relationship of the kind that
probably very rarely exists in reality. The narrator’s fantasy is unrealistic: she
changes both her and her daughter’s appearance in the daydream, and even
imagines that they both would like orchids.
3. The mother knows where the name comes from and respects the tradition. The
daughter wants to change the name without understanding its background.
4. The first two parts (in the yard and the flashback to the fire and the girls’
childhood) set the scene. The last two parts (the arrival/meal and the discussion
47
about the quilts) present the conflicts that arise from the history that the family
shares.
5. Dee is searching for both modernity and tradition. Her clothes, her elegant
shoes, her fashionable hairstyle and her having left the family home all point to
the search for modernity and upward mobility. Her desire to take the butter
churn and the quilts, plus the changing of her own name, show a desire to get
better in touch with the traditions that she came from.
6. The quilts represent something handed down through the generations, worked
on by several generations of the same family. They are both beautiful and
meaningful.
CHAR ACTERIZATION (page 299)
Narrator/Mother
1. She can kill and clean a hog as well as a man can. Her fat keeps her warm no
matter how cold it is. She can work outside all day.
2. The narrator used to think that Dee hated Maggie. Dee is lighter than Maggie.
She hated the house they used to live in. After she learned to read, she would
read to her mother and sister in an almost aggressive way. She “wanted nice
things” whereas it is clear that the narrator has never cared much about clothes.
3. Her comments on the new African names that Dee and her companion have
taken on are wry and ironic. She sees Dee as she really is, is not intimidated by
her despite her learning and position, and protects her other daughter from Dee.
She also understands the true worth of the quilts better than Dee does.
4. She seems to understand Dee better, and to be a little more charitable of her.
She enjoys and appreciates her closeness with Maggie.
Maggie (page 299)
1. Answers will vary. Possible answers: Maggie is homely and ashamed of her
burn scars (line 8). Her mother compares her to a lame animal (line 49) and
states that she knows she’s not bright (line 80).
2. She embodies the negative aspects of her heritage in her fear and
submissiveness, but she is also in touch with the real effort and love that went
into making the quilts, and she knows how to quilt. She doesn’t need a quilt to
remember her grandmother, unlike Dee.
3. At the beginning of the story she seems fearful, almost hiding from her sister
before the visit. At the end she seems more at ease, peacefully chewing snuff
with her mother. The scene with Dee where they discuss the quilt contributes to
the change: Maggie really seems stronger and more in touch with her heritage
than Dee does.
Dee
1. Before we meet Dee, we learn that she thinks orchids are tacky, that she would
always look anyone in the eye, that hesitation was not part of her nature, that
she is lighter than Maggie, that she hated the house she grew up in, that she
wanted nice things, that she is educated, and that she has a lot of “fault-finding
power.”
2. Her feet are “neat-looking,” and her dress is fashionable and elegant. She is
wearing gold earrings and bracelets, and her hair is stylish.
3. He does not seem like a suitable mate. He is more pretentious than she is
(refusing to eat food that he probably grew up with as well) and doesn’t seem
48
to be very bright or polite (he inspects the narrator “like somebody inspecting a
Model A car.”)
4. She tries to take the quilt even after her mother says she can’t have it.
5. She must learn that she can’t always have what she wants.
P OI NT OF VIEW: First-Person Narration
1. Answers may vary. Possible answer: There is no such thing as an “unbiased
view” of the characters and events: even an omniscient narrator always has a
perspective. The narrator in this story seems to have a balanced view of both of
her daughters: she lists good and bad points of each one.
2. She is addressing the reader. There is no one else who could be “you” in this
situation.
3. The tone is sometimes sad (when she compares Maggie to a lame animal) and
sometimes humorous (when she wonders if Hakim-a-barber is a barber).
4. Answers will vary. Possible answer: Dee might have taken a much more
critical attitude toward her mother and sister, and might have discussed in
greater detail her mother’s weight problems or her sister’s snuff.
A Prepositional Phrases
1. in the yard (adverbial) / like an extended living room (adjectival; modifies it) /
around the edges (adverbial) / into the elm tree (adverbial) / for the breezes
(adverbial) / inside the house (adverbial) / in corners (adverbial / of the burn
scars (adverbial) / down her arms and legs (adjectival; modifies scars) / with a
mixture (adverbial) / of envy and awe (adjectival; modifies mixture) in the palm
of her hand (adverbial) / to her (adverbial)
2. In real life (adverbial: manner) / with rough man working hands (adjectival) /
to bed (adverbial: place) / during the day (adverbial: time)
3. [underline] even before I wake up [circle] even
4. It is a particle; it is part of the phrasal verb to turn one’s back on and cannot be
separated from the verb.
5. They are adverbial.
6. There are seven. Line up is not a prepositional phrase; it is a phrasal verb.
Answers will vary. Possible answers:

1. . . . .behind her house,
2. . . . with a wide smile.
3. . . . with a limp.
4. . . . in tails.
5. After lunch. . .
6. After dinner. . .
B Verb s of Movement
Answers will vary.
C Building Vocabulary Skills

1.
a. gave up
49
b. stare Dee down

c. brings up (will bring up)
d. tear it down
e. went on
f. cropped up
g. threw out
h. follows up
i. hanging back
j. had been (were) handed down
2. In the first sentence, used to means that she wore them many times over a long
period of time. In the second, was used to wearing means that she was in the
habit of wearing them.
The narrator and Maggie were used to chewing snuff.

Dee used to chew snuff when she lived with her mother and sister, but now she
doesn’t.
Wangero used to be named Dee.

The narrator isn’t used to calling her daughter a new name.
Their ancestors used to sleep under the quilts.

Dee is no longer used to living in a simple house.

Answers will vary.
50

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A World of Fiction Answer Key

Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved

A World of Fiction Ans wer Key

1 CAN-CAN Arturo Vivante (page 3)

Part 1 First Reading

Part 2 Second Reading

Part 3 Focus on Language

2. Definitions will vary. Words for paragraph completion:

Part 4 Writing Activities

2 TH E STORY OF AN HOUR Kate Chopin (page 13)

Part 2 Second Reading

Part 3 Focus on Language

A Suffixes ( Note: some variation is possible for some answers)

Noun Verb Adjective Adverb

B Building Vocabulary Skills (page 21)

3 EPICAC Kurt Vonnegut (page 23)

Part 1 First Reading

Part 2 Second Reading

Part 3 Focus on Language (page 33)

Part 4 Writing Activities (page 36)

4 The Legacy Virginia Woolf (page 39)

Part 2 Second Reading

Part 3 Focus on Language

Gilbert Angela Sis sy B.M

prominent lovely-looking soul of discretion soul of candour

Additional possible adjectives:

Gilbert Angela Sis sy B.M

Gilbert Angela Sis sy B.M

Part 4 Writing Activities (page 50)

5 The Kugelmass Episode Woody Allen (page 51)

Part 2 Second Reading

C Judging for Yourself (page 64) Answers will vary.

Part 3 Focus on Language

1. He was up to his neck in work, so he stayed late at the office.

Part 4 Writing Activities (page 67)

6 An Intruder Nadine Gordimer (page 69)

Part 1 First Reading

B Understanding the plot (page 62)

Part 2 Second Reading

of childhood when James seduces her. He frequently calls her a rabbit or a

Part 3 Focu s on Language

Part 4 Writing Activities

7 Powder Tobias Wolff (page 89)

Part 1 First Reading

Part 2 Second Reading

Answers will vary.

Part 3 Focu s on Language

Dangling Modifiers (page 98) Answers may vary slightly.

Sentence Fragments (page 99)

B Building Vocabulary Skills (page 99)

aid and abet = help, usually to do something negative

highhanded = rude, inconsiderate

Part 4 Writing Activities (page 100)

8 Mother Grace Paley (page 103)

Part 1 First Reading

Part 2 Second Reading

Part 3 Focu s on Language

Part 4 Writing Activities (page 111)

9 A Short Digest o f a Long Novel Budd Schulberg (page 113)

Part 1 First Reading

Part 2 Second Reading

3. A comparison could be drawn between the loss of innocence in a more general

Part 3 Focu s on Language