Nabokov’s “The Vane Sisters,” Marquez’s “Death Constant Beyond Love,” and Silko’s “Yellow Woman” all deal with illicit sexual relationships. Compare and contrast which partner in these affairs is more powerful—the person cheating or the lover.

Choose three of the following questions and respond to them in at least one full page each.

Essay Question 1:

Political dilemmas punctuate The Guest by Camus, “God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children” by Amichai, and “In Camera” by Saadawi. Compare and contrast the directly political messages of “In Camera” with the more philosophical tones of The Guest and “God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children.”

Essay Question 2:

Nabokov’s “The Vane Sisters,” Marquez’s “Death Constant Beyond Love,” and Silko’s “Yellow Woman” all deal with illicit sexual relationships. Compare and contrast which partner in these affairs is more powerful—the person cheating or the lover.

Essay Question 3:

“Zaabalawi” by Mahfouz, “Digging” by Seamus Heaney, “Girl’ by Jamaica Kincaid, and “The Old Gun” by Yan all depend on a rich cultural heritage to create their messages. Which of these works depend most on an understanding of the cultural background, and which depend the least—explain why by comparing and contrasting all four works.

Essay Question 4:

Achebe’s “Chike’s School Days” and Walcott’s “The Sea Is History” both confront prejudice but in different ways. Achebe uses subtle humor to show how people from a single tribe treat one another differently while Walcott invokes a wide span of history—primarily Biblical—to illustrate how different races treat one another differently. However, at the root of both of these works is colonialism. Compare and contrast the point each author is making about how native and colonial cultures assimilate.

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