1.
As you have seen, Rousseau goes into detail about his early childhood, including information about his parents as well as his weaknesses growing up.

Having read his confessions, how do you describe Rousseau as a person? Do you sympathize with him as a flawed human being, or do you see him more of a hypocrite? You must provide evidence from the text to back up your response. Also, provide page numbers within parenthesis when you refer to certain lines from the text.

2.Tolstoy writes: “Ivan Ilyich’s past life had been very simple and ordinary and very awful” (689).

What do you think Tolstoy means by that?

And how does Ivan’s life differ from that of Gerasim?

3.Pick any two of the three stories you read for this week (“Punishment,” “Kabuliwala,” and “Separate Ways”) based on a common theme, and discuss the theme you found in both stories with examples.