Novel Question Bank

Part 1
1) The Bluest Eye discusses the Emancipation proclamation and the Fugitive Bill. (false)
2) In Beloved, most of the characters are busy dealing with owning property. (false)
3) The Bluest Eye is a post Civil War piece of fiction. (false)
4) The main theme in Beloved is oppression against women. (false)
5) Beloved is a short story. (false)
6) Beloved is the first novel by Toni Morrison. (false)
7) Motherhood is an important theme in Morrison’s works. (True)
8) The main focus of Beloved is racism and racial segregation. (True)
9) The reader is supposed to pity Morrison’s characters but never hope for their salvation.
(false)
10) In Beloved, Sethe committed suicide twice. (False)
11) Both novels: The Bluest Eye and Beloved belong to post-colonial fiction. (true)
12) Slavery and its aftermath is the main theme in The Bluest Eye. (false)
13) Examples on the thick love of mothers and fathers who suffered through slavery and racism
can only be found in Beloved. (true)
14) Animal imagery is used throughout the two novels because it represents the image imposed
on African Americans by the white society as inferior. (true)
15) There is a reference in The Bluest Eye to black people having four feet instead of two.
(false)
16) The fear of being homeless is discussed in Beloved. (true)
17) Both Sethe and Paul D remained slaves for eighteen years. (false)
18) Halle rented himself out to buy Baby Suggs her freedom. (true)
19) Baby Suggs had ten children. (false)
20) “Wicked people love wickedly,” said Paul D. (false)
21) The character of Baby Suggs is an example of self-alienation. (false)
22) “All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was
hers first and which she gave to us. All of us[…] felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on
her.” This quotation describes Pecola. (True)
23) The second rape that Pecola thought of was real (false)
24) In both novels, ink is poisonous and it killed innocence. (true)
25) In The Bluest Eye, the concept of stains and guilt is related to colorism and blackness. (true)
26) In Beloved, only Sethe was able to survive her traumatic experiences. (false)
27) Trauma is stored in the memory that’s why Morrison discusses the dangers of the rememory
in her novels. (true)
28) Sethe suffered from PTSD and hallucinations. (true)
29) The Bluest Eye foregrounded the demonization of Blackness in American culture. (true)
30) The Breedlove family lived in a house by the lake, which is white with a big white fence.
(false)
31) The dandelions represent beauty in The Bluest Eye. (true)

1 QUESTION BANK W.A.V.E TEAM 4th Year Novel 2023

32) “Now there was a man, and that was a tree.” The man in this sentence is__Sixo___ and the tree
represents__ lynching
33) “Sprawled near Brother, his flame-red tongue […]his indigo face closed, slept like a corpse[…]
Himself lying[…]and the tree next to him didn’t compare.” The man described here is Paul D and
Brother refers to his brother Paul A. (false)
34) In Beloved, trees are symbols of life and hope. (false)
35) What is the meaning of KKK? Ku Klux Klan
36) Paul D had an iron bit in his mouth just like Sethe’s mother. (true)
37) What is the story of Amy and the significance of velvet?
 The portrayal of Amy Denver, for whom Sethe’s second daughter was named, echoes images of
touching and healing that were introduced earlier in the book. Morrison hints at Amy’s nature by
her name, which derives from the Latin word amor, or love. An ignorant, tactless child, Amy
expects Sethe (Lu) to die. Yet, cheerfully humming, she detours from her own flight to gather
cobwebs, elevate Sethe’s swollen feet, and prattle on about her desire for bright red velvet, which
symbolizes luxury.
38) What is the significance of the fire throughout Beloved? Conflagration (a huge fire) is a
metaphor for the dead voices in hell and symbolic of lynching of black people and historic
slavery.
39) Sethe and Paul D’s first intimate encounter was passionate and promising. (false)
40) Sixo’s woman ran away at the end of the novel pregnant with Seven B. (false)
41) The theme of being outdoors or homeless is discussed in both novels. (True)
42) Slaves, “who hadn’t run off or been hanged, got rented out, loaned out, bought up[…] stored up,
mortgaged, won, stolen or seized,” because they were considered live stock. (true)
43) “What she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped
playing checkers just because the pieces included her children.” What is the meaning of this
quotation? Nobody stopped playing checkers because it is a political system that controls
them and their lives
44) “God take what He would. And He did, and He did, and He did and then gave her Halle who gave her
freedom when it did not mean a thing.” This quotation is about loss of hope and a patriarchal
God. (false)
45) “The jump, thought Paul D, from a calf to a girl wasn’t that mighty. Not the leap Halle believed it
would be.” Their conception here is true. (false)
46) In Beloved, the house was regarded as a person than structure. (true)
47) Beloved kept repeating “a hot thing,” which reflects her admiration of Sethe. (false)
48) Beloved wore a lace around her neck hiding the scare that the saw caused. (true)
49) Beloved is about oppressed women only. (false)
50) Paul D is responsible for the return of the baby ghost in flesh, which Denver wished for.
(True)
51) Denver secretly wished that Beloved would appear to Paul D to kick him out of the house and
her wishes were fulfilled. (True)
52) There is a reference for lynching in The Bluest Eye. (True)
53) What is the significance of storytelling?

2 QUESTION BANK W.A.V.E TEAM 4th Year Novel 2023

  In The Bluest Eye, there are multiple narrative perspectives that equips a more knowledgeable
response to the events of the novel. The novel jumps around in characters lives to explain a better
perspective to why some characters act the way they do or how past events shape them to whom
they are in current events.
54) Who is Nan?
 black woman who practically raised Sethe (and narrator)
55) What is the significance of Sethe’s wedding dress?
 She made a dress to show that she is human
 Sethe describes how she pilfered fabrics to fashion a wedding dress, which she topped off with a
wool shawl that "kept [her] from looking like a haint peddling."
56) What is the significance of taking a shortcut across the field to save half a mile and
chamomile sap?
 Carelessness. Those places are beautiful, but it hides the terrible that is underneath
57) The house 124 in Bluestone Road had a spirit. (true)
58) Stamp Paid found a ribbon of a black dead girl near his house. (true)
59) “Unless carefree, motherlove was a killer,” it refers to the thick love. (true)
60) “She knew she was building a case against him in order to build a case against getting pregnant.”
Sethe decided to build a future with Paul D and accepted his request to bear his children.
(false)
61) After the party held by Baby Suggs was over, the ninety neighbors were grateful and
content. (false)
62) After the party held by Baby Suggs was over, the ninety neighbors were angry and jealous
of the holy Baby Suggs. (True)
63) What is the significance of the following:
a) The black berries and the blackberries pies. (Beloved)
o refers to their black community and also because it has bitteness to it, the envyness, the
oppression. They became racist among themselves.
b) Ink and its relation with poison and evil (Beloved and The Bluest Eye)
o Paul D's visit to 124 confirms Sethe's madness. Still consumed with guilt, she obsesses
over having made the ink for schoolteacher that he used to classify her animal
characteristics. In her mind, the ink caused all that has happened.
64) The Bodwins were light skinned black people. (False)
65) What is the skin color of the Bodwins family? White skinned.
66) “It made them furious. They swallowed baking soda to calm the stomach violence caused by the
bounty.” Who are they and what made them furious? (neighbors of Baby Suggs – the feast)
67) Who was chasing Sethe after her escape and were they successful in claiming her back?
Schoolteacher
68) What is the meaning of the following words:
a) Pickaninnies
o Black children. The term, derived from Spanish or Portuguese, evolved into a racial slur
meant to denigrate or dehumanize.
b) Mulatto
o Dictates that those blacks who are considered the most beautiful are those who most
closely resemble whites.

3 QUESTION BANK W.A.V.E TEAM 4th Year Novel 2023

69) The schoolteacher punished his nephew by making him feeding Mrs. Garner and the stock.
(true)
70) “See what happened when you overbear creatures God had you the responsibility[…] The whole lot
was lost now. Five.” The lot refers to the rest of Sweet Home men. (false)
71) Denver was named after the white woman who helped Sethe. (True)
72) Nan told Sethe that she was the only child from a black father and that her mother threw
her other children from white men in the water. (true)
73) What is story of Sethe’s mother and what Nan told her about her mother?
 Nan told her that she and Sethe's mother were together on the boat voyage from Africa and
that Sethe's mother had been raped many times by white men but always threw away the
resulting infants. She finally kept Sethe and gave her the name of the black man that was her
father.
74) Sethe was named after a black man whom her mother loved. (true)
75) Sethe was exiled and alienated among her people in 124 . (true)
PART 2
76) At the end of the novel, both Sethe and Denver were able to see their own worth and realize
that they were their precious things. (true)
77) Self-love is what most of the characters share in The Bluest Eye. (false)
78) slavery broke family ties and dehumanized humans. (true)
79) What is the name of the place where Baby Suggs used to preach in and what did she ask her
people to do? the Clearing/ Cincinnati
80) Safety was missing in 124. (true)
81) “Thin love ain’t love at all,” expressed Paul D. (false)
82) Stamp Paid felt regret after showing the clipping to Paul D as he realized it was meanness
that motivated him to do so. (fault)
83) “Pride goeth before a fall.” This sentence describes Sethe’ self-sufficiency . (true)
84) Morrison discussed the Settlement Fee and the Fugitive Act in The Bluest Eye. (true)
85) “Those twenty-eight happy days were followed by eighteen years of disapproval and a solitary life.”
What does the underlined word suggest? alienation
86) Sethe’s childhood was a rough one and she never saw or knew her mother . (true)
87) The Misery is the day when Sixo was burned alive. (true)
88) Where are the places and what are the times that the ghost visited before it reached 124?
 First, Beloved appears shortly after Paul D banishes the ghost from 124, and the name she
gives herself references the one-word inscription on her tombstone. She’s also about the
same age as Sethe’s daughter would have been, had she lived. Finally, Beloved arrives at 124
thirsty and with a scratchy throat, and at one point tries to strangle Sethe. Both of these
references to the throat allude to the fact that Sethe slit her daughter’s throat. All of these
details support the hypothesis that Beloved is the incarnated ghost of Sethe’s dead
daughter.
89) What happened during the carnival?
 He invites Denver and Sethe to a carnival in town that is having a special day for Black
people. At the carnival, Denver surprises herself by having a good time. The people they see
there greet her casually, rather than showing her the contempt she expects. Because he is
such an extrovert and so shamelessly thrilled by the carnival, Paul D is a hit with the other

4 QUESTION BANK W.A.V.E TEAM 4th Year Novel 2023

 carnival-goers. He thus helps reintegrate Sethe and Denver into the community, and he
makes a few acquaintances. He also inquires about getting a job. Paul D is amused by the
spectacle of the supposed “Wild African Savage,” because he says he knew the man back in
Roanoke. On the way to and from the carnival, the smell of rotting roses is overpowering.
Also, both on the way there and on the way back, Sethe notices that the three shadows of
Paul D, Denver, and herself overlap so as to appear to be holding hands. She interprets this
as a promising sign that signals future happiness.
90) What is the importance of the memory and the theme of the rememory?
 In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the word “rememory” is used when the main character, Sethe, recalls
moments that have been forgotten. She is faced with these uncanny re-memories—moments
that are not quite familiar because they have been tucked away for so long—and at their
sudden manifestation, becomes haunted by their existence.
91) What is the importance of storytelling?
 One of the ways in which memories live on is through storytelling. The novel explores the value
but also the danger of storytelling. Storytelling keeps memories alive and Sethe's telling Denver
about her family and her miraculous birth gives Denver some sense of personal history and
heritage.
92) What are the voices coming out of 124?
 Stamp Paid hears many voices talking at once as he walks towards 124 and although he
cannot "describe or cipher it to save his life," he could only make out the one word: mine. When he
peeks through the window he only sees Beloved and Denver. Stamp Paid heard many voices,
but only saw two people suggesting that something suernatural could be taking place.
 These voices are both metaphorical, through Beloved’s loud spirit controlling Sethe’s emotions, as
well as physical, through the three women of the house starting a new joyful life together, laughing
at themselves with no one around to judge them.
93) “Feel how it feels to have a bed to sleep in and somebody there not worrying you to death[…]to
deserve it,” said Paul D. (false) said by Sethe
94) “I am not dead the bread is sea-colored[…] those able to die are in a pile[…] a hot thing the little hill
of dead people.” Beloved here describes how the bread was fresh and edible. (false)
95) In the previous quotation, Beloved saw pile of dead people under the water. (false)
96) Savagery is what you expect from a black person who behaves like animals. For example he
schoolteacher explained to his students that black people have animal characteristics. (true)
97) "the air is heavy I am not dead I am not there is a house there is what she whispered to me
I am where she told me I am not dead I sit the sun closes my eyes.” What is the technique
used here? Stream of consciousness
98) The black community didn’t help Sethe when the schoolteacher came to claim her back and
for the second time they witnessed her fall and her children’s fall and didn’t help her when
Beloved came back in flesh and it weakened Sethe and Denver and they were alienated from
everyone. (false)
99) “Sethe was licked, tasted, eaten by Beloved’s eyes[….] The longing she saw there was
bottomless.” The word bottomless signifies… bottomless signifies beloved great obsession to
Sethe

5 QUESTION BANK W.A.V.E TEAM 4th Year Novel 2023