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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. What ideas are associated with the snow in this poem?
(a) Punishment, corruption, and justice.
(b) Prejudice, indifference, and suffering.
(c) Heaven, purity, and nature.
(d) Circumstance, poverty, and innocence.

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Which techniques are evident in line 4, "To bend and barter at desire's call"?

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

4. What is being referred to with the expression "silver break" (line 7)?

5. In lines 2 and 3, the expression "when the night lets fall/ Its veil" is an example of which technique?

(see the answer key)

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