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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Hard, True, and Lasting," Morrison says that she can tolerate being alienated from the dominant culture because she knows what?
(a) Strangers cannot touch the things she loves.
(b) Her isolation will cause her to understand better what is valuable in Black culture.
(c) She will grow through surrendering to another culture.
(d) The modern world is dangerous and corrupt.

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

3. In "Introduction to Peter Sellars," Morrison says that Sellars wanted what kind of introduction?
(a) Extremely brief.
(b) Off-topic.
(c) Humorously elaborate.
(d) Scholarly but clear.

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

5. In "The Trouble with Paradise," Morrison claims that in the modern world, what has become "trivial"?
(a) Morailty.
(b) Justice.
(c) Religion.
(d) Paradise.

6. In "Hard, True, and Lasting," Morrison says that what feeling is the first one writers feel when they begin to write?
(a) Gratitude.
(b) Independence.
(c) Love.
(d) Separateness.

7. In "Gertrude Stein and the Difference She Makes," Morrison posits that the "Lone" Ranger is "lone" because of what?
(a) His race.
(b) The presence of Tonto.
(c) His gender.
(d) Hiding his face behind a mask.

8. In "Tribute to Romare Bearden," Morrison focuses her attention on the relationship between what and Bearden's art?
(a) Black nationalism.
(b) Her own writing.
(c) History.
(d) Music.

9. In "Invisible Ink," what word does Morrison object to when it is applied to text?
(a) Truthful.
(b) Dynamic.
(c) Stable.
(d) Fictive.

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

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

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

13. In "The Writer Before the Page," Morrison compares a successful text to what?
(a) A map.
(b) A historical narrative.
(c) A guidebook.
(d) A shattered mirror.

14. In "The Source of Self-Regard," Morrison suggests that one reason that her work is widely taught is that it is what?
(a) A more intimate way of reading history.
(b) Filled with reflection on contemporary social issues.
(c) Challenging to younger readers.
(d) Made to stand in for all of Black literature.

15. In "God's Language," what does Morrison say seems more true the longer she writes?
(a) The impossibility of writing.
(b) The centrality of African American subjects.
(c) That she deserves the praise she got earlier in her career.
(d) That it will be possible to merge the scientific and the artistic.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "On Beloved," Morrison says that one thing that frustrates her is the absence of Black girls where?

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

3. In "The Trouble with Paradise," what does Morrison call "a realm that is no realm at all"?

4. In "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison comments that race was once used to exclude Blacks, but now that they want their race represented, they are told it does not exist. What function does this detail perform?

5. 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?

(see the answer keys)

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