Try It
Review 1
Use the review games below to practice.
Use the flashcards to reivew to concepts for the lesson.
1)Look up the word, Creole in the dictionary and find its definition.
Answer: People born in West Indies or Spanish America who speak French patois and live in southern Louisiana.
2) Whatis important about the setting of Chopin's story?
Answer: It is set in French Louisiana.
3)List some specifics examples of the foolish prejudices of Madame Carambeau.
Answer:Mme refuses to speak to her son because he married an English-speaking lady, an American. She refuses to learn to speak English. She detests dogs, cats, organ-grinder, white servants and noises of children. She despised Americans, Germans, and all non-Catholics. Everything had to be French.
4) What does her name suggest as to her culture? Why does she not speak English?
Answer: She thins it is a corrupt language.
5)Why does she not speak to her son?
Answer:He married an English-speaking woman.
6) How long has it been since Mme Carambeau has spoken to her son?
Answer: Ten years
7) What occasion brings children to her house if she is prejudiced against them?
Answer: Mme's daugther hosts a birthday party for her son, Gustave.
8) How does the little girl end up in Mme Carambeau's lap?
Answer: Gustave chases her, and she seeks Mme for safety.
9) Chopin uses a simile to describe the little girl. What is it?
Answer: She sat there panting like a frightend bird.
10) What causes Mme to forget her prejudice for a couple of days?
Answer: While holding the child, Mme realizes her granddaugther has a high fever. Mme is a nurse and lvoes to take care of the sick without prejuidce.
11) Look up the word, patois. Define it.
Answer: Spoken dialect of French speaking people.
Review 2
Use the review games below to practice.
1) What did Madame learn by working through her prejudices?
Answer: You might say that Mme learns that her granddaugther deserves to be loved, that Americans are not so bad , and that American Catholic churches are not so bad, either.
2) What does Chopin suggest by the symbols of Doubt, Mistrust, and Dissatisfaction?
Answer: These symbols are prejudices.
3) Why does she refer to them as seeds?
Answer: Prejudices can "fester" or grow as seeds grow.
4) Once the seeds germinate, Truth emerges. What is its metaphor?
Answer: You might say that we can discover the truth behind a prejudice.
5) What are the first two steps Madame takes to erase a deep predjudice?
Answer: She cares for a American child who happens to be her estranged granddaughter. She attends an American Catholic church on Christmas morning. She goes to visit her son.
6) How is she received?
Answer: They received her with open arms and with happiness.
7) The servant is referred to as speaking a "Negro patois." Was this term offensive in Chopin's day?
Answer: It was not taboo during the day of Chopin, the author.
8) Where you suprised that the little girl's parents allowed her to stay with Madame Carambeau? Chopin leaves this part vague until the end. Why?
Answer: We don't learn until the end that the child was her own granddaugther.
9) To what does Mme attribute the turn of events?
Answer: Providence
10) Not willing to admit her prejudice, Madame blames her son. Why?
Answer: One reason might be that it is easy to blame someone else and not admit our own prejudices.
11) Why do people tend to argue they have no prejudices?
Answer: One answer might be that they do not like admit they are prejudiced.
Removing Prejudice
Steps to Remove Prejudice
Let's review the steps Madame goes through to remove her prejudice. Put them in the correct order.
She embraces her family in her home.
She decides to learn to speak English.
She feels the tenderness and love of the child, speaking in English.
She visits an English-speaking Catholic church.
She cares for her granddaughter after she gets sick at the party.
She allows her grandson to have a birthday party and to invite friends.
Her granddaughter, her estranged son's child, attends the party.
She visits her son and his family.
Tense
Have you noticed that whenever we talk about stories and poetry, the literature we study, we use a particular tense for our verbs. Look at the steps listed in the preceding activity. In what tense are all of the verbs since we are discussing literature?
Tense and Literature
It will be hard to get used to, at first, but, eventually, you will automatically use present tense when you write about literature. The reason for using present tense is that every time we visit a work of literature, the action is just taking place. It is always happening now.
For example, when we get to Unit 5, we will read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel I have read so many times I have forgotten the exact number. Nonetheless, every time I open the book and read the first sentence, "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother, Jem, got his arm badly broken at the elbow." I am immediately transported to Maycomb, Alabama, and to the time setting of the novel. From that moment, the events of the story are in the present. Therefore, it is okay to write about the author in past tense, but we must use present tense when we discuss literature. Okay? Does this information make sense?
Correct the Tense
Correct the tense in the following passage:
In Chopin's "Matter of Prejudice," Madame Carambeau learned the value of the love of one's family. She also learned that she needed to remove her prejudice of Americans, although she never admitted to having any prejudices.