1.13 Unit Test Literature With A Purpose

Question: How have Black Hawk’s cultural experiences shaped his view of his ancestors?

Answer: They made him believe his deceased ancestors offer guidance and inspiration to the living, and their spirits must be respected and honored.

Question: How does Black Hawk use rhetoric in this excerpt to advance the viewpoint selected in Part A?

Answer: He uses ethos to appeal to the audience’s sense of morality and justice.

Question:

Answer: Part A

It affects the way he perceives and phrases his memories of the details of battle.

Part B

He uses similes that indicate that he sees experiences through nature’s lens.

Question:

Answer: Part A

He uses an extended metaphor to convey the magnitude of his sorrow about having to surrender.

Part B

It conveys finality and hopelessness about the future.

Question:

Answer: They help convey the intensity of Hamilton’s belief in his position.

Question: How does Hamilton support and advance his purpose in this passage?

Answer: By expressing complete certainty in his position, Hamilton presents his argument in favor of an independent judiciary as one to which no logical objection exists.

Question: How does Hamilton convey his ideas about the limited power of the judicial branch of the government in Paragraph 2?

Answer: He points out that the judiciary cannot undermine the other two branches, but they can both undermine it.

Question: One theme that emerges over the course of the novel is that war is a savage, ugly affair that permanently changes those soldiers who survive it.

How does this section of the novel work to develop that theme?

Answer: By establishing that Henry initially views war as wholly noble and soldiers as entirely gallant and heroic, the novel creates a situation in which Henry’s actual experiences as a soldier in a war will fundamentally change his understanding of it.

Question: What does the fact that Henry imagines battles as involving “heavy crowns and high castles” reveal?

Answer: Henry’s idea of warfare has been heavily influenced not by experience or reality but by the heroic tales he has grown up with.

Question: Henry’s mother continues to work at milking the cow and peeling potatoes as she talks with Henry.

How does her behavior help demonstrate the role of farming among families in nineteenth-century America?

Answer: It helps suggest the high level of effort required by all members of a family living on a farm at that time.