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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Faulkner and Women," what effect does Morrison say Faulkner has had on her writing?
(a) None.
(b) He provided an example of how to manipulate language.
(c) Faulkner was the inspiration for Song of Solomon.
(d) She uses symbolism in a similar way.

2. In "Goodbye to All That," what does Morrison say that she wants her work to disable?
(a) The art versus politics debate.
(b) Modern secular humanism.
(c) The hegemony of Europeans in the canon.
(d) The Western canon.

3. In "Introduction to Peter Sellars," Morrison praises his work for being what?
(a) Aware of the boundaries between Self and Other.
(b) Both accessible and challenging.
(c) Critical of racial hierarchies.
(d) Both feminist and scholarly.

4. In "Memory, Creation, and Fiction," Morrison says what of her process of writing Tar Baby?
(a) She chose the most memorable details from her memory of being told the story.
(b) She deliberately excluded any details that could be found in Western retellings of the story.
(c) She edited out the more disturbing details of the original story.
(d) She researched several versions of the folktale.

5. In "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison says that what is different about the discussion of including African-American literature in the canon is that unlike earlier arguments over expanding the canon, this one does what?
(a) Calls into question the authenticity of American literature as a category within the canon.
(b) Undermines the existence of the canon itself.
(c) Responds to shifting tastes in the reading public.
(d) Arouses much more violent passions in the defenders of the status quo.

6. In "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison compares the restriction of the canon by traditional Western standards to what?
(a) A jail cell.
(b) A corset.
(c) A lobotomy.
(d) A glass house.

7. What does the title "Academic Whispers" refer to?
(a) Morrison's belief that there is a quiet conversation taking place about the purpose of African American literature.
(b) Echoes of past racism in modern literary criticism.
(c) Rumors circulating in the Princeton English Department about Morrison's refusal to participate in literary scholarship.
(d) The secret agreement to exclude Black professors from tenure at Princeton.

8. In "God's Language," what does Morrison say is the place of religion in African American culture?
(a) It's a powerful example of the merging of African culture with European culture.
(b) It is central to the culture.
(c) Its influence has weakened significantly.
(d) It historically marginalized Black people.

9. In "The Site of Memory," what tactic does Morrison point out in slave narratives?
(a) Creating audience sympathy through obvious appeals to pathos.
(b) Challenging the audience with frequent, pointed rhetorical questions.
(c) Appealing to audience by assuming the reader's nobility and morality.
(d) Engaging the audience through vivid description of slavery's brutality.

10. Morrison's novel "Paradise" is set where?
(a) In Jerusalem.
(b) In an unnamed kingdom.
(c) In an all-Black town.
(d) In New York during the Jazz Age.

11. In "God's Language," what does Morrison say gets more attention than paradise?
(a) Hell.
(b) Money.
(c) Race.
(d) Power.

12. 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) Sophisticated use of language.
(d) Details of everyday life on the plantations.

13. In "Grendel and His Mother," Morrison notes that Beowulf is a part of Western literature's characterization of evil as what?
(a) A product of environment.
(b) Pervasive.
(c) Feminine.
(d) A philosophical construct.

14. In "Grendel and His Mother," what claim does Morrison make for Beowulf?
(a) It functions as a mirror for our own time.
(b) It is an artifact of an irrelevant time.
(c) It equals our modern knowledge of reality.
(d) It exposes how values have shifted in Western culture.

15. In "God's Language," Morrison says that she does not keep a writer's notebook because of what?
(a) Her novels serve the same purpose as a writer's notebook.
(b) She is afraid that people would want to read it.
(c) She thinks writer's notebooks are an excuse to avoid actual writing.
(d) Her process does not work with a writer's notebook.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison says that arguments against the inclusion of African American writings in the canon follow a sequence that ends with what belief?

2. In "The Writer Before the Page," Morrison says that she wants to do what with her writing?

3. In "Academic Whispers," Morrison says that interview requests used to make her feel like she was being used as what?

4. In "God's Language," Morrison uses the word "ruminating" to describe what?

5. In "The Site of Memory," Morrison says that a large part of her "literary heritage" is what?

(see the answer keys)

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