Questions and Topics We Can Help You Answering; 
Wright’s short story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” is a coming of age or initiation story. Discuss Dave, the protagonist of Wright’s story, in comparison to Huck, in Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jesse in Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man,” and Sarty in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” Based on the evidence in each of the stories, whose initiations suggest that the experience will be successful and whose initiations suggest that the experience will be a failure? 
Fully explain your rationale and defend your choices for each character.

2. What makes Emily Grierson such an enigma to her neighbors? What is she hiding from them, literally as well as figuratively? Discuss/describe how her actions throughout the story reflect on the community that raised her – be sure to support your response with relevant examples from the story.

3. What is the source of Abner Snopes’s rage? A glitch in his personality? A reactionary protest against the inequities in the class system that have destined him to a dead-end life as a sharecropper?  Faulkner gives little insight into Abner’s motivation, even going so far as to tell the story largely through the perspective of a young child who can’t possibly fathom why Abner behaves as he does. Use specific examples of Abner from the story to support and explain your rationale.