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 considered an outcast.

She is revered and honored.

She is mocked.

She is visited everyday.
2 Why do the young people come from the city to visit the old woman?
To play a trick and disprove her wisdom.

To evict her from her house.

To listen to her stories.

To pay her their respects.
3 When the young people arrive at the old woman's house, what does their trick depend on?
The old woman's deafness

The old woman's isolation

The old woman's poverty

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

Tell them if the bird they hold in their hands is alive or dead

Move to the city.

Help them with their love life.
5 What does the old woman tell the children in response?
She doesn't know if the bird is alive or dead, but she does know the bird is in their hands.

The bird is dead.

To go back to the city.

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

It is the children's responsibility.

The old woman is not actually blind.

It is the old woman's bird.
7 What does Morrison say the old woman is calling attention to in her response?
The old woman's power herself.

Assertions of power.

The power of language.

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 language and the old woman is a practiced writer.

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

Generative and powerful.

An extinct dialect.

Unyielding and limiting.
10 What is an example of oppressive language, according to the old woman and Morrison?
Racist language

Extinct language.

Rural dialect.

Ageist language.
11 What is the conventional wisdom of the Tower of Babel story, according to the old woman?
The collapse was an accident.

The Babylonians achieved their purpose.

The collapse was a misfortune

The workers built Heaven on earth.
12 What is the best description of the relationship between language and experience, according to the old woman?
Language gestures towards experience but cannot substitute for it.

Language is irrelevant to experience.

Language can replace experience with words.

Experience gestures towards language but cannot substitute for it.
13 What is the measure of our lives, according to Morrison?
Dying.

Doing language.

Love.

Building the Tower of Babel.
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 failing to engage with the possibility that they had no bird in their hands.

For making fun of them.
15 What do the children actually want from the old woman?
For her to step down from her pedestal.

Her stories.

For her to move to the city.

For her to revive the dead bird.
16 What is the setting of the story the children tell the old woman?
The steerage cabin of a ship crossing the Atlantic.

The city they come from.

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

A cotton field.
17 What happens to the wagon of slaves in the children's story?
It stops outside the inn.

It is stolen by runaway slaves.

It ends up at the auction block.

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

A plantation owner.

A runaway slave.

The wagon driver.
19 What do the boy and girl from the inn do?
They free the slaves.

They tell the slaves a story.

They drive the wagon away from the inn.

They give the slaves in the wagon food and drink.
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 why they have come.

She says she finally trusts them.

She tells them a story of her own.

She asks them to leave.
22 Why does the woman say she trusts the children now?
Because the bird in their hands flew away.

Because she knows they were playing a joke on her.

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 meal that the old woman and the children ate together.

The preservation of the life of the bird.

The telling of her history.

The stories and use of language that the old woman and the children have shared.
24 In the prelude to Toni Morrison's lecture, what does she say is the principle way that humans digest information?
Through food.

Through narrative.

Through friendship with animals and birds.

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

1997

1973

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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