1. The narrator says in Part I, “What is clear now is that of all of that hope, fear, lust, love, and grief, nothing remains but Pecola and” what?
(a) “The unyielding earth.”
(b) “The infinite sky.”
(c) “The sands of time.”
(d) “The savage animals.”

2. What do the narrator and her sister receive at the start of the school year in Part II?
(a) Plaid skirts and vitamins.
(b) Brown stockings and cod liver oil.
(c) Black shoes and books.
(d) White shirts and pencils.

3. Where did Cholly Breedlove die, according to the narrator in Part V?
(a) The barber shop.
(b) The train station.
(c) The workhouse.
(d) The movie theater.

4. Many of the individual chapter titles in The Bluest Eye come from where?
(a) Titles in a hymnal book.
(b) The Dick and Jane story in the preface.
(c) Poetry by E.E. Cummings.
(d) An ancient African folk tale.

5. In what year does the author say in the Foreword that she began the “story” that would eventually lead to The Bluest Eye?
(a) 1944.
(b) 1957.
(c) 1962.
(d) 1938.

Short Answer Questions

1. The narrator states in Part II, “The Breedloves did not live in a storefront because they were having temporary difficulty adjusting to the cutbacks at the plant. They lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they believed” what?

2. Which movie does Maureen say the name Pecola is from in Part III?

3. The author describes "seeing oneself preserved in the amber of" what, in the novel's Foreword?

4. Of what dancer does Claudia say in Part II “was my friend, my uncle, my daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me”?

5. Who is described as a “competent midwife and decisive diagnostician” during Aunt Jimmy’s illness in Part IV?

(see the answer key)

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