Watch the 1942 Orson Welles film The Magnificent Ambersons or read John Cheever's short story "The Fourth Alarm." These two works, like "A Spinster's Tale," make references to the advent of automobiles and to the general themes of changing technology and changing times. Compare and contrast how each work addresses changes in society or technology.

View D. W. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation or the classic 1939 film Gone With the Wind. How do these films depict the South? How do these films depict women and African Americans? What similarities are there between the character Scarlett O'Hara, in Gone With the Wind and Elizabeth in "A Spinster's Tale"? What are the major differences?

Read Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a nonfiction memoir of growing up in Arkansas from an African American perspective. Compare some of Angelou's experiences with...