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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. "The Trouble with Paradise" is mostly about what?
(a) Characterization difficulties Morrison had while writing Paradise.
(b) The difference between older and more modern ideas of paradise.
(c) The language needed to describe paradise.
(d) The plot of Morrison's novel Paradise.

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 "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison notes that she almost titled the essay something else--what?
(a) Cannon Father.
(b) Canon Fodder.
(c) Canon Father.
(d) Cannon Fodder.

4. 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 is another pun, echoing the essay's opening.
(c) It has negative connotations that support the irony in the essay's tone.
(d) It has a secondary meaning that has to do with arms and armor.

5. In "Rememory," what does Morrison say causes her to rely on memory rather than history?
(a) History is a biased record.
(b) History is oriented toward the "male gaze."
(c) History isn't relevant to the topics she writes about.
(d) History is dull and lifeless.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison introduces Rogin's commentary on Moby Dick for what purpose?

2. What is one of the main subjects of Beloved?

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

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

5. In "Faulkner and Women," what does Morrison say is characteristic of Black art?

Short Essay Questions

1. In “Invisible Ink," what does Morrison say bothers her about the association of the word "pleasure" with reading?

2. In “The Trouble with Paradise," what does Morrison mean when she says that fiction writers have to stare unblinking into the "realm of difference"?

3. According to “The Writer Before the Page," why does Morrison use allusions to folktales in her writing?

4. In "On Beloved," Morrison discusses Sula and Beloved in the context of feminism; what is the relationship of these two texts to feminism?

5. In “The Site of Memory," what does Morrison say about how image and memory interacted for her in relation to her father's death and Song of Solomon?

6. In “The Source of Self-Regard," what does Morrison say made her uncomfortable about the letters she received from students, and why did it make her feel this way?

7. What point is Morrison trying to illustrate when she brings up the origins of Ancient Greece in “Unspeakable Things Unspoken"?

8. In “Grendel and His Mother," what does Morrison say is interesting about the Danes' reaction to Grendel, and what does she say this shows about the nature of evil?

9. According to “The Writer Before the Page," what is the relationship between Hannah Peace and Sula?

10. According to “Goodbye to All That: Race, Surrogacy, and Farewell," what have been the changes over time in the literary handling of relationships between women of different races?

(see the answer keys)

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