Self-study
P1
The work of South African writer Ezekiel Mphahlele has confounded literary critics, especially those who feel compelled to draw a sharp distinction between autobiography and fiction. ███
Intro topic ·
Writer Ezekiel Mphahlele and how to classify his work
If critics who want a sharp distinction between autobiography and fiction are "confounded" by Mphahlele, then Mphahlele's work probably doesn't fit those categories
Critics' perspective ·
Difficult to categorize Mphahlele's work
Two examples: an autobiography and a novel, with the novel apparently including autobiographical details
Author's response to critics ·
Mphahlele intentionally defies categorization
Critics say Mphahlele's autobiography is too fictional and his novel too autobiographical, but they miss the point
P2
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Expand on critics' perspective ·
Backhanded praise for novel
Critics imply that "The Wanderers" isn't great literature, dismiss it because it features real people
Mphahlele's response to critics ·
They're wrong; novel does feature an important fictional element
Author's explanation of Mphahlele's motivation ·
Social ideals underlie his work
Unclear what "humanist" and "integrationist" mean, but they're social ideals, and the author thinks they come through well in Mphahlele's writing; meanwhile, critics think Mphahlele's vision is incomplete
P3
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Contrast ·
Mphahlele's views against critics' views mentioned earlier
Critics concerned with categorizing Mphahlele's work as autobiography (fact) v. fiction, but Mphahlele says there's no such thing as pure fiction or absolute fact in novels
More on Mphahlele's motivation ·
Melds fact and fiction
Takes real experiences and then works in fictional elements to convey his social message
Main point ·
Mphahlele intentionally melds fact and fiction in order to get his social message across
Differences between autobiography and fictional novel don't matter
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Spotlight
6.
Which one of the following ███████ ██ ███████████ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ███████
a
his commitment to █████████████ ██████ ████████
The author has a positive attitude toward Mphahlele’s concern with conveying a social message. This is shown by the use of the word “wonderfully” in connection with Mphahlele’s articulation of a vision for the future, and by the author’s emphasis on Mphalele’s concern for social message as a response to criticism that his works don’t adhere to sharp distinctions between autobiography and fiction.
b
his blending of ███ ██████████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████████
This is very tempting, because it’s easy to get the impression that the author values Mphahlele’s lack of concern for sharp distinctions between literary categories. But the passage doesn’t actually contain any words or phrases that indicate an especially strong positive attitude toward this. Nowhere do we see a word like “wonderfully” used in connection with the autobiographical features in Mphahlele’s fiction or the fictional elements in his autobiography.
c
his ability to ████████ ███████████ ████████ ██████████
There’s no indication that Mphahlele redefined literary categories. Although he wrote in a way that ignored distinctions between these categories, that doesn’t imply his work changed prevailing consensus about the definition of each category. Maybe Mphahlele was unique, and no one else followed his lead in blurring distinctions between categories.
d
his emphasis on ███ ██████████ ██ ███████
There’s no evidence of a positive attitude toward the details in Mphahlele’s work. Although Mphahlele believes “details must be drawn from the writer’s work,” we don’t get any positive words in connection with this claim about details.
e
his plan for ████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████
Although Mphahlele’s work displayed a vision of the future, he didn’t provide any “road maps for bringing such a future about.” So, it wouldn’t make sense for the author to have a positive opinion about Mphahlele’s “plan for bringing about the future he envisions,” when that plan wasn’t part of his work.