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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "God's Language," Morrison uses the word "ruminating" to describe what?
(a) Her admiration for Black women.
(b) The prayers of her childhood friend.
(c) Her contemplation of images.
(d) The kind of paradise revealed in her books.

2. In "The Writer Before the Page," Morrison explains what about the structure of her novels?
(a) She dislikes nonlinear narrative.
(b) She is frustrated when the parts feel fragmentary.
(c) She finds chapter and part designations unhelpful.
(d) She always begins with a careful outline.

3. In "Faulkner and Women," what does Morrison call the character of Sula?
(a) A delight.
(b) An artist.
(c) An adventuress.
(d) A conqueror.

4. In "Goodbye to All That," what does Morrison say was her motive for insisting on being identified as a Black writer from the beginning?
(a) She hoped to make an argument for Black universalism.
(b) She wanted to expand critical vocabulary to encompass territory within Black culture.
(c) She hoped to provoke a conversation about the viability of Black culture.
(d) She wanted to unambiguously reject white culture.

5. In "Faulkner and Women," what does Morrison say is characteristic of Black art?
(a) Its use of cross-genre influences.
(b) Its use of allegory.
(c) Its use of myth.
(d) Its use of historical allusions.

6. In "The Source of Self-Regard," Morrison recounts being asked how to teach one of her books when what was true?
(a) When parents oppose the reading of her book.
(b) When there were no CliffsNotes.
(c) When students struggle to understand her language.
(d) When the teacher is white.

7. In her "James Baldwin Eulogy," Morrison makes an allusion to what Biblical story?
(a) Leviathan.
(b) David and Goliath.
(c) The destruction of Solomon's temple.
(d) The visit of the Three Wise Men to the Christ child.

8. In "The Writer Before the Page," Morrison says that she wants to do what with her writing?
(a) Tell a fictionalized account of her own life story.
(b) Challenge critics to accept a blurring between memoir and fiction.
(c) Question the foundations of the Western canon.
(d) Engage the reader in a participatory relationship.

9. In "Grendel and His Mother," what omission from Beowulf does Morrison say is significant?
(a) The impact of Grendel's actions on the Danes.
(b) Grendel's motivation.
(c) The character of Grendel's father.
(d) Grendel's relationship with his mother.

10. Why is "panoply" a clever piece of diction as used in "Unspeakable Things Unspoken"?
(a) It is part of the alliteration that creates rhythm in the passage.
(b) It has a secondary meaning that has to do with arms and armor.
(c) It has negative connotations that support the irony in the essay's tone.
(d) It is another pun, echoing the essay's opening.

11. In "The Site of Memory," Morrison says that a large part of her "literary heritage" is what?
(a) Poetry.
(b) Fiction.
(c) Autobiography.
(d) The Western canon.

12. In "The Trouble with Paradise," Morrison says that writers must hold "an unblinking gaze into the realm of" what?
(a) Difference.
(b) Inequality.
(c) Sorrow.
(d) Death.

13. In "Memory, Creation, and Fiction," what does Morrison say about basing characters on people she knows well?
(a) She does not do it, because real people do not provide enough room for her imagination.
(b) She does it often, because real people provide a kind of accuracy that wholly fictional people do not.
(c) She does it often, because for her it is part of assembling the "collage" of memory.
(d) She does not do it, because it is immoral.

14. In "Academic Whispers," Morrison says that interview requests used to make her feel like she was being used as what?
(a) A "specimen."
(b) "Literary enforcement."
(c) A "humanistic disciple."
(d) "Journalistic glue."

15. What is one of the main subjects of Beloved?
(a) Friendships among women.
(b) Women's control over their own bodies.
(c) The justice system.
(d) The difference between education and wisdom.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "The Site of Memory," what tactic does Morrison point out in slave narratives?

2. In "Gertrude Stein and the Difference She Makes," Morrison proposes that the third response to chaos is what?

3. In "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison notes that she almost titled the essay something else--what?

4. In "Tribute to Romare Bearden," Morrison focuses her attention on the relationship between what and Bearden's art?

5. In "Gertrude Stein and the Difference She Makes," what element does Morrison say is an aspect of the European American response to chaos lacking in the indigenous response?

(see the answer keys)

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