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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. In "Academic Whispers," Morrison says that interview requests used to make her feel like she was being used as what?

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

3. In "Unspeakable Things Unspoken," Morrison brings up Bernal's two models of Greek history in order to illustrate what point?

4. Morrison's novel "Paradise" is set where?

5. In "Goodbye to All That," what does Morrison say that she wants her work to disable?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. In “Gertrude Stein and the Difference She Makes," Morrison says that the two responses to chaos are "renaming" and "violence." What does she mean by this?

3. In “Unspeakable Things Unspoken," who does Morrison credit with opening up the canon, and how would she like to see it further expanded?

4. In “The Trouble with Paradise" what reasons does Morrison give for leaving the racial identification of those in the Convent ambiguous?

5. 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?

6. In “Unspeakable Things Unspoken," what does Morrison say she is trying to evoke with the image of nightshade in the beginning of Sula?

7. In “The Site of Memory," what reasons does Morrison give for finding her inclusion in an anthology about memoir to be both strange and appropriate?

8. In “Faulkner and Women," what does Morrison say Faulkner's influence on her has been?

9. In “Gertrude Stein and the Difference She Makes," what confuses Morrison about Stein's portrayal of Rose?

10. In “Academic Whispers," what three reasons does Morrison say are poor reasons to include African American literature in the canon?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In "On Beloved," Morrison offers a metaphorical comparison between an image or piece of language and a key, and compares untraveled literary territory to an area locked behind a large locked door. Explain what she means by this comparison and how it relates to her writing of Beloved.

Essay Topic 2

In “Home” and “Wartalk,” Morrison explores how social change and historical events can shape language. Choose a word that she analyzes in “Home” and a word that she analyzes in “Wartalk.” Explain what Morrison would say the two words have in common and what she would say is different between them.

Essay Topic 3

In “A Race in Mind: The Press in Deed,” Morrison introduced the motif of minstrelsy that will recur throughout her work. What is minstrelsy, and how does it relate to the ideas she explores of the “self” and the “other”?

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