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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "Harlem Shadows," Lines 1-18.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which lines of each stanza are indented?
(a) The first and sixth.
(b) The fifth and sixth.
(c) The first and third.
(d) The second and fourth.

2. In line 16, what word does the speaker use to describe the feet of his own race?
(a) Prideful.
(b) Sacred.
(c) Aching.
(d) Fearful.

3. Which line most clearly echoes the tension between "little girls" (line 5) and "prowling" (line 6)?
(a) Line 9, "Through the lone night until the last snow-flake."
(b) Line 11, "The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet."
(c) Line 12, "Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street."
(d) Line 7, "Through the long night until the silver break."

4. What does the expression "feet of clay" in line 15 refer to?
(a) Stubbornness and selfishness.
(b) A delicate, easily-fractured nature.
(c) Cowardice and fear.
(d) A hidden character flaw.

5. In the first image of the sex workers, what is being emphasized?
(a) Their determination.
(b) Their reaction to the cold.
(c) The burden of social expectations.
(d) The motion of their bodies.

Short Answer Questions

1. What ideas are associated with the snow in this poem?

2. What are the sex workers wearing on their feet?

3. Which two lines of each stanza create a kind of refrain in this poem?

4. Whose presence is implied in "To bend and barter at desire's call" (line 4)?

5. What does the word "shod" in line 12 refer to?

(see the answer key)

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