Chose two of the literary authors we have read this term and write an essay that argues why these authors agree or disagree with Lazarus’s vision of American acceptance and promise for those of different racial, religious, national, and/or ethnic backgrounds. How do these authors present their own views about American acceptance and promise? If American acceptance and promise exist, under what terms? If they don’t exist, why has the vision failed?

FINAL EXAM ESSAY TOPIC #1:
“The New Colossus,” Emma Lazarus’s poem dedicated to the Statue of Liberty, ends with this famous statement about the possibility of acceptance and promise in America: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest‐tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Chose two of the literary authors we have read this term and write an essay that argues why these authors agree or disagree with Lazarus’s vision of American acceptance and promise for those of different racial, religious, national, and/or ethnic backgrounds. How do these authors present their own views about American acceptance and promise? If American acceptance and promise exist, under what terms? If they don’t exist, why has the vision failed?

FINAL EXAM ESSAY TOPIC #2:
As discussed by David Shi, different writers in the post‐Civil War era turned away from “idealistic” representations of human life to ones that were more “realistic.” This transition from “idealistic” to “realistic” representations can be seen in how different post‐Civil War authors represented problems of courtship, marriage, and family life. Chose two of the literary authors we have read this term and write an essay that argues how each author’s representation of courtship, marriage, and/or family life reflects this post‐Civil War interest in realism. How does each author reflect different realities (or challenges) of post‐Civil War America in the way that she or he represents the human relationships involved in courtship, marriage, and/or family life? If these relationships succeed, what obstacles must they overcome? – if they fail, why do they fail?