Answer BOTH of the following questions, using specific examples and direct quotations from the range of texts we have explored so far this semester. Be succinct in your answer, making sure you have a topic sentence for each paragraph and a concluding paragraph that concisely addresses the question. Each answer will be 2-3 pages, typed. Include a cover sheet with a title for each essay, the characteristic or theme the essay explores, and the list of works cited in that essay. Proofread your paper! As always, you will be graded on both your ideas and how you express them in writing.

You will use examples from The Great Gatsby, Passing, Machinal, and Men Without Women, as well as from at least 1 poem, 1 painting, 1 film, and 1 advertisement. So that's at least 8 examples. Use 4 examples in each answer, using each text only once.

1) MODERNIST TECHNIQUES
Modernism is the key literary, aesthetic, and cultural movement of the 1920s. Explain one of the following characteristics of modernism by using examples from 4 of the texts in this class.

self-conscious questioning of all social and moral values
"Make it new."
interest in perception
determination to work creatively with fragmentation (from Cubism to montage)
self-conscious manipulation of the conventions of art itself
themes of alienation and incompleteness
fascination with time and space
dealing with the consequences of World War I in both form and content
representing subjectivity and interiority through point of view (ie: narrators)

2) JAZZ AGE THEMES
Several cultural themes of the Jazz Age recur in the texts we have discussed. Choose one and explore how it is treated in 4 examples from the range of texts.

conflicting ideals of femininity
commodification and consumerism
the gaze
the city & "modern life"
tension between nostalgia & progress
mechanization
duplicity of modern life
the crowd
individuality
the basis for modern identity (ie: race? class? gender? consumerism?)

WEBSITE with digitized reproductions of modernist paintings, photographs, and advertisements:
http://classes.berklee.edu/llanday/spring02/jazzage/resources.htm