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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who does Marx offer as examples of 'complex pastoralism' in America literature?
(a) Fitzgerald and Faulkner.
(b) Salinger and Bukowski.
(c) Dos Passos and Hurston.
(d) Eliot and Pound.

2. What is Huck Finn lamenting at the beginning of Huckleberry Finn?
(a) Jim's incarceration.
(b) His loss of his father.
(c) Tom Sawyer's punishment.
(d) His current civilized state.

3. Which industry has Marx talked most about, in 'The Machine in the Garden'?
(a) Education.
(b) Pharmaceuticals.
(c) Medical devices.
(d) Transportation.

4. How would you classify Marx's 'The Machine in the Garden'?
(a) Scientific study.
(b) Cultural criticism.
(c) Psychological report.
(d) Literary criticism.

5. What is the purpose of an epilogue?
(a) To repudiate parts of the book that look naïve or foolish.
(b) To reflect on the content of the book.
(c) To repeat the main themes one more time.
(d) To describe the process of writing the book.

6. How did Melville describe whaling?
(a) As an art.
(b) As an industrial enterprise.
(c) As a symbol of society.
(d) As a spiritual calling.

7. What did Emerson say that science and technology could serve?
(a) Corrupt men.
(b) A destructive god.
(c) A rural ideal.
(d) Powerless men.

8. What still remains in every man, in Marx's account?
(a) The pastoral ideal.
(b) Optimism for industry.
(c) Hope for progress.
(d) Faith in medicine.

9. What was the general feeling about industrialism in America, as it expanded?
(a) Caution.
(b) Optimism.
(c) Doubt.
(d) Positivism.

10. What does Marx say Thoreau wanted people to do in nature?
(a) Meditate.
(b) Hide.
(c) Organize.
(d) Invent.

11. What is Ishmael's task, in Marx's description of Melville's vision in Moby Dick?
(a) To restrain Ahab.
(b) To kill the white whale.
(c) To reconcile nature and society.
(d) To save the ship.

12. What was the American response to steam power in Britain?
(a) That it would become their great strength.
(b) That it would never come to America.
(c) That it would corrupt the youth with dreams of travel.
(d) That it would provide them cheap power.

13. How did Emerson describe the relationship between the east and the west?
(a) The east's factories were a given, but they were balanced by the agrarian west.
(b) The east's industry was destroying everything as it moved west.
(c) The east was bringing civilization to the wild west.
(d) The east was producing literature, the west was producing science.

14. What symbolic statement does Marx say Twain made in the raft being destroyed in Huckleberry Finn?
(a) Fleeing from the law is dangerous.
(b) Man is alone in the river of life.
(c) Technology has progressed beyond steamboats.
(d) Hiding from society is impossible.

15. What was the effect of industrialism in Thoreau's vision?
(a) Machines had improved daily life for millions.
(b) Industry had generated enormous wealth.
(c) Military developments had made technology deadlier than ever.
(d) Man had become a slave to his tools.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who does Marx say will *not* contribute to reversing the trend toward urbanization and industrialization?

2. What did Coxe foresee for America?

3. What did Daniel Webster believe the railroad would do for America?

4. What effect does fire have in Hawthorne's The Unpardonable Sin?

5. What should man do in nature, in Thoreau's vision?

(see the answer keys)

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