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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "Harlem Shadows," Lines 1-18.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the expression "feet of clay" in line 15 refer to?
(a) Stubbornness and selfishness.
(b) Cowardice and fear.
(c) A delicate, easily-fractured nature.
(d) A hidden character flaw.

2. In line 1, "footsteps of a lass" is an example of which technique?
(a) Sibilance.
(b) Alliteration.
(c) Synesthesia.
(d) Onomatopoeia.

3. What ideas are associated with the snow in this poem?
(a) Prejudice, indifference, and suffering.
(b) Heaven, purity, and nature.
(c) Circumstance, poverty, and innocence.
(d) Punishment, corruption, and justice.

4. Which line most clearly echoes the tension between "little girls" (line 5) and "prowling" (line 6)?
(a) Line 9, "Through the lone night until the last snow-flake."
(b) Line 12, "Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street."
(c) Line 7, "Through the long night until the silver break."
(d) Line 11, "The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet."

5. Whose presence is implied in "To bend and barter at desire's call" (line 4)?
(a) Police officers.
(b) Clients.
(c) Pimps.
(d) Bystanders.

Short Answer Questions

1. In line 16, what word does the speaker use to describe the feet of his own race?

2. What does the word "shod" in line 12 refer to?

3. Which two lines of each stanza create a kind of refrain in this poem?

4. Which techniques are evident in line 4, "To bend and barter at desire's call"?

5. What is being referred to with the expression "silver break" (line 7)?

(see the answer key)

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