The Nobel Lecture in Literature Quizzes

The Nobel Lecture in Literature Quiz

1 How is the old woman in Morrison's fable treated by her own people?
She is visited everyday.

She is revered and honored.

She is considered an outcast.

She is mocked.
2 Why do the young people come from the city to visit the old woman?
To pay her their respects.

To evict her from her house.

To play a trick and disprove her wisdom.

To listen to her stories.
3 When the young people arrive at the old woman's house, what does their trick depend on?
The old woman's poverty

The old woman's isolation

The old woman's blindness

The old woman's deafness
4 What do the young people ask the old woman to do?
Tell them stories.

Help them with their love life.

Move to the city.

Tell them if the bird they hold in their hands is alive or dead
5 What does the old woman tell the children in response?
The bird is alive.

She doesn't know if the bird is alive or dead, but she does know the bird is in their hands.

To go back to the city.

The bird is dead.
6 What does Morrison say the old woman's response means?
The old woman loves the children.

It is the old woman's bird.

It is the children's responsibility.

The old woman is not actually blind.
7 What does Morrison say the old woman is calling attention to in her response?
The power of language.

Assertions of power.

The old woman's power herself.

The mechanism through which power is exercised.
8 What metaphor does Morrison use to analyze the conversation between the children and the old woman?
The bird is language and the children are practiced writers.

The bird is a writer and the old woman is language.

The bird is prejudice and the old woman is hope.

The bird is language and the old woman is a practiced writer.
9 What is closest to the old woman's idea of dead language?
The engraving on a tomb.

Unyielding and limiting.

An extinct dialect.

Generative and powerful.
10 What is an example of oppressive language, according to the old woman and Morrison?
Ageist language.

Rural dialect.

Extinct language.

Racist language
11 What is the conventional wisdom of the Tower of Babel story, according to the old woman?
The workers built Heaven on earth.

The collapse was an accident.

The Babylonians achieved their purpose.

The collapse was a misfortune
12 What is the best description of the relationship between language and experience, according to the old woman?
Experience gestures towards language but cannot substitute for it.

Language is irrelevant to experience.

Language gestures towards experience but cannot substitute for it.

Language can replace experience with words.
13 What is the measure of our lives, according to Morrison?
Building the Tower of Babel.

Doing language.

Dying.

Love.
14 What is one reason the children are angry with the old woman?
For being confident of her wisdom.

For not admitting her weakness to them.

For making fun of them.

For failing to engage with the possibility that they had no bird in their hands.
15 What do the children actually want from the old woman?
For her to revive the dead bird.

Her stories.

For her to move to the city.

For her to step down from her pedestal.
16 What is the setting of the story the children tell the old woman?
The city they come from.

A cotton field.

A slave wagon on a cold, snowy night in America.

The steerage cabin of a ship crossing the Atlantic.
17 What happens to the wagon of slaves in the children's story?
It stops outside the inn.

It ends up at the auction block.

It is stolen by runaway slaves.

It is sent back to the ship.
18 Who comes out of the inn, in the children's story?
A young boy and girl.

The wagon driver.

A plantation owner.

A runaway slave.
19 What do the boy and girl from the inn do?
They give the slaves in the wagon food and drink.

They drive the wagon away from the inn.

They tell the slaves a story.

They free the slaves.
20 What does the young girl do as she passes out food?
She looks into the eyes of each slave.

She asks them for a story.

She offers them more.

She asks them their name.
21 How does the old woman respond to the children's monologue?
She asks them to leave.

She asks them why they have come.

She tells them a story of her own.

She says she finally trusts them.
22 Why does the woman say she trusts the children now?
Because she knows they were playing a joke on her.

Because the bird in their hands flew away.

Because she says they have caught the bird.

Because she knows they are just children.
23 What might the old woman's last comment be referring to?
The telling of her history.

The stories and use of language that the old woman and the children have shared.

The meal that the old woman and the children ate together.

The preservation of the life of the bird.
24 In the prelude to Toni Morrison's lecture, what does she say is the principle way that humans digest information?
Through narrative.

Through friendship with animals and birds.

Through food.

Through love.
25 What year was Toni Morrison awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature?
1993

1973

1997

2019

Study Guide for The Nobel Lecture in Literature

The Nobel Lecture In Literature study guide contains a biography of Toni Morrison, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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The Nobel Lecture in Literature

by Toni Morrison

The Nobel Lecture in Literature Quiz

The Nobel Lecture in Literature Questions and Answers

Study Guide for The Nobel Lecture in Literature

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