Pick two topics and write a well-developed, brief essay for each question. (A brief essay should be at least three paragraphs or 300 words.) Make sure to use clear thesis statements and topic sentences. Include specific references to the texts (preferably direct quotes) to support your major points. The essays are designed to test how well you can apply the concepts you've been studying across a variety of works and make connections among the works.

1. In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is closely associated with two other women who represent opposite extremes of acceptable behavior for women of her social class: Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz. Discuss how EITHER woman serves as a foil for Edna and illustrates how poorly suited Edna is for her position or her aspirations.

2. How does Jim in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn refute the beliefs about non-whites that many nineteenth-century American whites held?

3. Edna Pontellier in The Awakening and Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley in "Roman Fever" are all somehow trapped by their social class. Discuss how the expectations for their class have confined, warped, or harmed at least three of these characters.

4. Compare the humor in "Gimpel the Fool" to that of "Good Country People." How is the humor in each story similar? How would you characterize the humor? Does this kind of humor, in itself, seem to make a statement about humanity, world conditions, and the vision of the authors?