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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 6: Part II--God’s Language, including the essays “James Baldwin Eulogy” through “The Writer Before the Page”.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. "Noblesse oblige" is a philosophy that urged the nobility to do what?
(a) Share their wealth.
(b) Prevent strangers from entering their lands.
(c) Seize power from the church.
(d) Accumulate as much land as possible.

2. According to Morrison's "Black Matter(s)," the slave population became the focus of what fundamental feeling of the colonists?
(a) The "immigrant's hope."
(b) The "outcast's terror."
(c) The "Romantic yearning for freedom."
(d) The "Pilgrim's awe and piety."

3. In "The Site of Memory," Morrison remarks on the absence of what in slave narratives?
(a) Depictions of the narrator's interior life.
(b) Historical accuracy.
(c) Details of everyday life on the plantations.
(d) Sophisticated use of language.

4. In "Grendel and His Mother," Morrison notes the significance of what characteristic of Grendel's mother?
(a) Her lack of speech.
(b) Her size.
(c) Her capacity for forgiveness.
(d) Her intelligence.

5. In "Black Matter(s)," Morrison speculates that slaves offered white Americans a sense of what?
(a) Religious duty to the oppressed.
(b) Being monitored by their social inferiors.
(c) Permissiveness and freedom lacking in the Europe of that time.
(d) Power and authority they had been denied in Europe.

Short Answer Questions

1. What form of literature does Morrison discuss at length in "Black Matter(s)"?

2. In "Black Matter(s)," Morrison says that immigration from the Old World to the New World is usually seen as what?

3. According to Morrison's "Black Matter(s)," Gothic Romance is evidence of what feeling in the new nation?

4. In "The Writer Before the Page," what does Morrison say she avoids in her writing?

5. In "God's Language," what does Morrison say seems more true the longer she writes?

(see the answer key)

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