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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the race of the character in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym?

2. What does America's flight from one thing to another identify as an escape from?

3. What is the third duty of a persona?

4. In Hemingway's works, what do black nurse-men often articulate?

5. What does a character in Hemingway's work refer to having sex with black women as?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Morrison describe the Africanist persona?

2. Describe one major theme Morrison lists being consistent with American literature.

3. How does Huckleberry Finn critique class and race?

4. What does Morrison hope to avert the critical gaze from and to?

5. According to Morrison, what does American literature represent a commentary of?

6. Describe To Have and Have Not.

7. What role do black men play in Hemingway's works?

8. How does Hemingway make the serviceability of the Africanist presence more pronounced?

9. According to Morrison, when is mankind bereft?

10. According to Morrison, what does Poe's work show?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does Hemingway portray race in his work? How is Hemingway distant from African-Americans in his work? What does this tell the reader? How does Hemingway show the difference between males and females? How does he relate this to race?

Essay Topic 2

Describe the difference between denotative and connotative definitions involving the term Africanism. Describe both definitions. Then explain the denotative and connotative definitions of another term that Morrison uses in response to American literature.

Essay Topic 3

Morrison states that she struggles with language that evokes hidden signals of racial superiority and that her vulnerability lies in romanticizing blackness. What does this mean? What does this tell the reader about Morrison and about literature? Give an example of hidden signals of racial superiority and romanticizing a race.

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This section contains 667 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample