A Few Questions about "Logging and Pimping": Midterm Exam Part One

1. Why does Jim first break the silence in the bunkhouse? What has he been doing?
2. Why and when does the narrator leave the bunkhouse?
   
3. Who is Eugene Debs and why might Jim think Debs “soft”?
4. What is a Black Watch shirt? What is the Black Watch?
5. What are White Logger boots and where are they made and what role do these boots play in the story?
6. What is a Carnagie Public Library? Who was Carnagie?
7. Who is Jack Dempsey?
8. What is an "Alphonse-Gaston" Act?
9. Is there anything special about Maclean's references to "Labour Day"? What is Labour Day? What about Sunday? Why is Sunday special—or is it?
   
10. Why does the narrator choose to leave the bunkhouse? What does “bunk” mean?
11. Is it right to pay the sharpener of the saws more than, say, the sawyers?
12. What does the word “gypo” mean and how does it relate to the world of 1928 Montana and the Anaconda Company?
13. Does Jim’s dress reflect his ethics? How? What about his speech? And the narrator’s dress and speech?
14. What, according to the narrator, is Jim’s personal ethos? In other words, what does Jim believe to be “the good life” and why?
15. Is Jim a socialist? Is the narrator?
16. What is a socialist? A capitalist? What is socialism? Capitalism?
17. What is Social Darwinism?
18. Both Jim and the narrator drink whiskey. Is drinking whiskey immoral? Illegal? Both?
19. Why do they drink?
20. Does Jim (or does the narrator or both) practice business ethics? If so, what are these ethics?
21. What does it mean to be Jim’s partner? What does the whore mean when she says the both she and the narrator are “partners of Jim”? What does the term “partner” connote today?
22. Can free citizens in the United States buy anything they can pay for?
23. What is paternalism? Regulation?
24. Is the only obligation of a business to earn a profit? What, if any, are the obligations of a business?
25. Define the term “fair business practices.” Caveat emptor.
26. What is the form of the story? From what traditions does it derive?
27. What code do Jim and the narrator share? How are they alike? Different?
28. What more can we add to our knowledge of the story in terms of its historical setting?
29. What major events in American history took place in the mid-1920s? How does such knowledge change the story—or does it?
30. What was the Scopes Trial?
31. What are Eugenics?
32. Women’s rights?
33. Civil rights?
34. What is Jim wearing when the narrator comes to “pay” him a “short visit”? What are the women wearing?
35. What do the clothes in the story tell us (sign us) about the story and its people?
36. What is the personal ethos of the narrator? In other words, what does the narrator truly and fundamentally believe and how do you know?
    
37. What is Christian Fundamentalism and from where did it come?