Name:
Final Exam
American Literature
Fall Semester 2020
Professor McGuire
Na
ative Section: “The Ship Shape” by David Sedaris
Choose the best answer to the following questions about “The Ship Shape.”
1. What is the setting of the story?
a. North Carolina, 1960s
. North Carolina, the future
c. Chicago, 1960s
d. Chicago, the future
2. What type of na
ation is used in the story?
a. 1st person
. 2nd person
c. 3rd person
d. 2nd person plural “yous guys”
3. How old is David in the story?
a. 5-6 years old
XXXXXXXXXXyears old
c XXXXXXXXXXyears old
d XXXXXXXXXXyears old
4. Which best describes the way in which David and his mother want to deliver the line “Well, one of my homes...?
a. in a way that indicates that they are lying
. Self-mocking
c. in a way that evokes incredible jealousy and resentment
d. in a way that seems natural and that makes others feel happy for them
5. Why do David and his mother imitate the woman at the beginning of the story?
a. They think she is funny.
. They want her to get mad.
c. They want to be like her.
d. None of the above.
6. What does David’s mother like to do at the beach?
a. Go swimming and surfing
. Go scuba diving
c. Stand at the edge thoughtfully watching the wate
d. Sunbathe and watch people go by
7. What happened the year David’s father was late in reserving a vacation rental on the Emerald Isle?
a. The sun was shining throughout their entire vacation.
. Amy was bit by a caterpillar and her face swelled.
c. They were not able to go on vacation at all that year.
d. David’s father bought them a beach home in order to make it right.
8. What do David and his siblings think of themselves when it is sunny out?
a. They feel blessed by God.
. They feel guilty because not everyone has sun shining on them.
c. They feel they earned it.
d. They feel unlucky because they prefer the rain.
9. What do David and his siblings do when it rains during their vacation?
a. They try to work hard and earn the sunshine through their goodness.
. They blame their father.
c. They all curl up and read lazily and enjoyably all afternoon.
d. They go to the Tastee Freeze for a delicious ice cream.
10. What does David mean by “the rejuvenating power of real estate”?
a. It costs a lot of money.
. It spices up his parents’ ma
iage.
c. Buying things can make you feel healthy.
d. Living near the ocean improves your respiratory system.
11. What transformation do we see in David when he believes his family will own two homes?
a. He demands another Coke from the waitress, without saying please.
. He plans to play his friends, those who like him for his money, against each other.
c. Both a and
d. None of the above
12. Which of the following is NOT a name the family plans to call their 2nd home?
a. The Ship Shape
. The Wait ‘n Sea
c. The Toothless Black Man Selling Shrimp from the Back of his Van
d. The Wooly Caterpilla
13. How many siblings does David have?
a. 1
. 5
c. 8
d. 14
14. How does David describe the potential 2nd home?
a. Run-down and dangerous
. Fine and good enough
c. Perfect and comfortable
d. They never get a chance to see it.
15. Rather than buying their own vacation home, what does the family do instead?
a. Buy land
. Add a bar in the basement
c. Add a pool
d. Buy a golf course
16. Why does David say his father continues to make promises he can’t keep?
a. He hopes to drive his wife to divorce him.
b. He is manipulative and mean-spirited.
c. He likes to play the part of the benevolent millionaire.
d. He is a bad provider.
17. What does the beach house symbolize to David and his family?
a. The opportunity to go beyond their middle-class status.
. The chance to
ing the family together.
c. The American Dream.
d. All of the above.
18. What happens to David’s parents after they fail to buy the beach house?
a. They buy a boat instead.
. They try again later.
c. Nothing, they stay the same.
d. They slowly drift apart.
19. What does David mean by the last line “You wouldn’t have been happy for us. We’re not that kind of people.”
a. He means it seems like some people deserve financial success and others don’t.
. He means they’re all really mean and lazy.
c. He means Americans don’t value wealth.
d. He means they didn’t want a 2nd home in the first place.
20. What is the tone of the story?
a. Humorous, but touching
. Humorous and silly
c. Sad and dark
d. Frightening, but engaging
M y mother and I were at the dry cleaner’s, standing behind a woman we hadnever seen. “A nice-looking woman,” my mother would later say. “Well put
together. Classy.” The woman was dressed for the season in a light cotton shift
patterned with oversize daisies. Her shoes matched the petals and her purse, which was
lack-and-yellow striped, hung over her shoulder, buzzing the �owers like a lazy
umblebee. She handed in her claim check, accepted her garments, and then expressed
Family Album June 16, 2003 Issue
Our Perfect Summe
One day, it seemed the right time to have a beach house all our own.
By David Sedaris
Photograph by Elliott Erwitt / Magnum
https:
www.newyorker.com
https:
www.newyorker.com/magazine/family-album
https:
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/06/16
https:
www.newyorker.com/contributors/david-sedaris
gratitude for what she considered to be fast and efficient service. “You know,” she said,
“people talk about Raleigh but it isn’t really true, is it?”
The Korean man nodded, the way you do when you’re a foreigner and understand that
someone has �nished a sentence. He wasn’t the owner, just a helper who’d stepped in
from the back, and it was clear he had no idea what she was saying.
“My sister and I are visiting from out of town,” the woman said, a little louder now, and
again the man nodded. “I’d love to stay awhile longer and explore, but my home, well,
one of my homes is on the garden tour, so I’ve got to get back to Williamsburg.”
I was eleven years old, yet still the statement seemed strange to me. If she’d hoped to
impress the Korean, the woman had obviously wasted her
eath, so who was this
information for?
“My home, well, one of my homes”; by the end of the day my mother and I had
epeated this line no less than �fty times. The garden tour was unimportant, but the
�rst part of her sentence
ought us great pleasure. There was, as indicated by the
comma, a pause between the words “home” and “well,” a
ief moment in which she’d
decided, Oh, why not? The following word— “one”—had blown from her mouth as if
propelled by a gentle
eeze, and this was the difficult part. You had to get it just right
or else the sentence lost its power. Falling somewhere between a self-conscious laugh
and a sigh of happy confusion, the “one” afforded her statement a double meaning. To
her peers it meant, “Look at me, I catch myself coming and going!” and to the less
fortunate it was a way of saying, “Don’t kid yourself, it’s a lot of work having more than
one house.”
The �rst dozen times we tried it our voices sounded pinched and sno
ish, but by
midafternoon they had softened. We wanted what this woman had. Mocking her made
it seem hopelessly unobtainable, and so we reverted to our natural selves.
“My home, well, one of my homes . . .” My mother said it in a rush, as if she were unde
pressure to be more speci�c. It was the same way she said, “My daughter, well, one of
my daughters,” but a second home was more prestigious than a second daughter, and so
it didn’t really work. I went in the opposite direction, exaggerating the word “one” in a
way that was guaranteed to alienate my listener.
A
“Say it like that and people are going to be jealous,” my mother said.
“Well, isn’t that what we want?”
“Sort of,” she said. “But mainly we want them to be happy for us.”
“But why should you be happy for someone who has more than you do?”
“I guess it all depends on the person,” she said. “Anyway, I suppose it doesn’t matter.
We’ll get it right eventually. When the day a
ives I’m sure it’ll just come to us.”
And so we waited.
t some point in the mid- to late nineteen-sixties, North Carolina began refe
ing
to itself as “Variety Vacationland.” The words were stamped onto license plates,
and a series of television commercials reminded us that, unlike certain of our neighbors,
we had both the beach and the mountains. There were those who bounced back and
forth between one and the other, but most people tended to choose a landscape and
stick to it. We ourselves were Beach People, Emerald Isle People, but that was mainly
my mother’s doing. I don’t think our father would have cared whether he took a
vacation or not. Being away from home left him anxious and cra
y, but our mothe
loved the ocean. She couldn’t swim, but enjoyed standing at the water’s edge with a pole
in her hand. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call �shing, as she caught nothing and
expressed neither hope nor disappointment in regard to her efforts. What she thought
about while looking at the waves was a complete mystery, yet you could tell that these
thoughts pleased her, and that she liked herself better while thinking them.
One year our father waited too late to make our reservations, and we were forced to
take something on the sound. It wasn’t a cottage but a run-down house, the sort of
place where poor people lived. The yard was enclosed by a chain-link fence and the ai
was thick with the �ies and mosquitoes normally blown away by the ocean
eezes.
Midway through the vacation a hideous woolly caterpillar fell from a tree and bit my
sister Amy on the cheek. Her face swelled and discolored, and within an hour