Analyzing the Content of Nineteenth-Century Fiction

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CLEP Humanities › Analyzing the Content of Nineteenth-Century Fiction

Questions 1 - 10
1

Which novel features a young man named Pip working his way through Victorian society?

Great Expectations

Pride and Prejudice

A Tale of Two Cities

Wuthering Heights

Middlemarch

Explanation

Charles Dickens' next-to-last novel, 1861's Great Expectations is often considered Dickens' most well-constructed and best-written novel. The story follows, in first person narrative, a young boy named Pip as he grows up and navigates Victorian London society through various connections he makes. The book is able to provide Dickens a platform to criticize Victorian manners and mores, as well as class structures.

2

What is the nineteenth-century novel about a Saxon hero in medieval England?

Ivanhoe

A Tale of Two Cities

The Three Musketeers

Kenilworth

Frankenstein

Explanation

Published in 1820, Ivanhoe was Sir Walter Scott's fifth novel. Like his previous novels, it was a historical novel, but it was his first to focus on the medieval era. Telling the story of the roguish hero Wilfred of Ivanhoe during the last part of the twelfth century, Scott's book brought about a revival of interest in medievalism, chivalry, and Anglo-Saxon England during the nineteenth century in Britain.

3

What is the early-nineteenth-century novel about the Bennett sisters’ quest for appropriate marriages?

Pride and Prejudice

Emma

Great Expectations

Little Women

Northanger Abbey

Explanation

Pride and Prejudice is perhaps Jane Austen's most famous novel. Like most of her work, it focuses on the romantic travails of upper class women in her own early nineteenth-century England. Pride and Prejudice specifically details the two very different approaches taken by the two Bennett sisters, the suspicious and harsh Elizabeth and the sweet, shy Jane, in finding appropriate marriages.

4

Ebenezer Scrooge is a character created by which author?

Charles Dickens

Jane Austen

George Eliot

Edgar Allen Poe

Thomas Hardy

Explanation

Ebenezer Scrooge is the main character of the novella A Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens in 1843. The story features three Christmas ghosts who each visit the miserly rich man Scrooge on Christmas Eve night. The three ghosts show Scrooge his past, present, and future, which make him reconsider his life and become more charitable and generous.

5

A frequent topic of the novels of Jane Austen was __________.

romance

the realities of war

politics

religious themes

travels

Explanation

Jane Austen, who published between 1811 and 1816, wrote novels that centered on the romantic interests and pursuits of well-born women in England during the early nineteenth century. Some of her best-known works are Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma, which all deal with women finding their husbands.

6

Which of the following is the novel about a young woman who has a child out of wedlock in colonial New England?

The Scarlet Letter

Ethan Frome

Moby Dick; or, The Whale

The Last of the Mohicans

The Marble Faun

Explanation

The Scarlet Letter was written in 1850 by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who often wrote about the colonial period in his native Massachusetts. The Scarlet Letter is the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman who is castigated by Puritan society for becoming pregnant and refusing to reveal the father of her child. The book's title derives from the bright red "A" she is required to wear by the town's magistrates.

7

The American prose work that depicts a whaling crew chasing a legendary beast is __________.

Moby Dick; or, The Whale

Billy Budd, Sailor

The Last of the Mohicans

The Scarlet Letter

The Red Badge of Courage

Explanation

Herman Melville's Moby Dick; or, The Whale, first published in 1851, tells the story of a whaling vessel, led by the intense Captain Ahab, as it tracks down the great white whale who gives the book its name. Told through the perspective of the sailor Ishmael, it is a highly allegorical tale featuring allusions to biblical themes, classical mythology, and historical issues.

8

Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are main characters in what novel?

The Three Musketeers

Les Miserables

The Count of Monte Cristo

Bleak House

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Explanation

Even though Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are the titular Three Musketeers in Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel_,_ the story is told through the point of view of D'Artagnan, a new recruit to the Musketeers of the Guard for French King Louis XIV. Dumas' novel was so popular that the story of D'Artagnan would get picked up in his later works Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne.

9

The Artful Dodger is a character in which Dickens novel?

Oliver Twist

Peter Pan

Treasure Island

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Of Mice and Men

Explanation

In Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens, the Artful Dodger is an orphan that mentors Oliver when he first arrives in London. The Dodger introduces Oliver to Mr. Finnegan, a gentleman that feeds and clothes a small army of orphans. In exchange, he teaches them to pick pockets and keeps the proceeds for himself.

Peter Pan was written by James Barrie; Treasure Island was written by Robert Louis Stephenson; The Hunchback of Notre Dame was written by Victor Hugo; and Of Mice and Men was written by John Steinbeck.

10

The French novel about a man fleeing police after leaving prison in the nineteenth century is __________.

Les Miserables

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Red and the Black

The Charterhouse of Parma

Les Chouans

Explanation

Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Miserables is an epic tale about Jean val Jean, a man who spends years on the run after escaping prison. Val Jean famously enters the harsh French prison system after stealing a loaf of bread, and is chased by the ruthless Inspector Javert. The book uses val Jean's story as a way to deal with French history, taking place from the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 to the June Rebellion of 1832.

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