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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Morrison teach?

2. What is the main theme in Sapphira and the Slave Girl?

3. Who was criticized by a scholar who deemed the term "darky" acceptable?

4. Who gave the lectures that Morrison bases Playing in the Dark on?

5. What does Morrison claim has impoverished literature?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who does Morrison blame for literary whiteness and blackness?

2. What type of language does Morrison struggle with?

3. What is the Byatt quote from Possession about?

4. How does Morrison describe the world that we live in today, and what effect does it have on her as a writer?

5. What does the term Africanism mean?

6. Describe the file that Morrison begins to keep.

7. Describe the character Sapphira and her motives.

8. What implication stems from the fact that imagination produces work?

9. How does Morrison describe references to the novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl?

10. What is the book Playing in the Dark based on?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Morrison describes the world as being genderized, sexualized, and racialized. Explain the effect these characteristics of the world have on Morrison as a writer as well as on people in general. Give three specific examples of how the world is genderized, sexualized, and racialized, one for each characteristic. Explain the consequences of living in a world with these qualities.

Essay Topic 2

According to Morrison, what are literary whiteness and literary blackness? What are the consequences of literary whiteness and blackness? How were literary whiteness and blackness created? How does Morrison avoid these two concepts?

Essay Topic 3

Analyze Morrison's comments about Willa Cather's novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl. What does Morrison have to say about the novel? Why does she say it would be meaningless without Africanist characters and the pedestal of racial degradation? Is this true?

(see the answer keys)

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