GRE Literature in English (REA) (12 page)

The title of the Shaw play
Arms and the Man
echoes the first lines of

1. The Aeneid.
   
2. Beowulf.
   
3. Paradise Lost
   .
   
4. The Iliad
   .
   
5. The Inferno
   .
   

And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd—seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.

The white man is

1. E.M. Forster.
   
2. Ernest Hemingway.
   
3. George Orwell.
   
4. Rudyard Kipling.
   
5. Frank O'Connor.
   

The incident takes place in

1. India.
   
2. Burma.
   
3. China.
   
4. Africa.
   
5. Vietnam.
   

Upon which literary tradition are the names Billy Pilgrim, Goodman Brown, and Willy Loman based?

1. Pilgrims' stories along a journey as in Chaucer's
   Tales
   
2. Historical character names as in the Holinshed
   Chronicles
   
3. Vice and Virtue names as in Medieval morality plays
   
4. Famous men's names as in Plutarch's
   Lives
   
5. Concepts and principles as in Aristotle's
   Poetics
   

The mind receives a myriad impressions—trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms...Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; but a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from beginning of consciousness to the end.

 

 

Which best describes the meaning here in regard to the development of the novel?

1. The novel should be as fragmented as experience.
   
2. The novel's time structure should be linear like life.
   
3. The novel's structure should reflect the randomness of experience.
   
4. The novel should be free from pattern but must follow conventional life.
   
5. The novel should be vague and hazy like a mist, not symmetrically patterned.
   

But now Fortune, fearing she had acted out of Character, and had inclined too long to the same Side, especially as it was the Right side, hastily turned about: For now goody Brown,—whom Zekiel Brown caressed in his Arms; nor he alone, but half the Parish besides; so famous was she in the Fields of Venus, nor indeed less in those of Mars.

 

The author employs the technique of

1. mock heroism.
   
2. hubris.
   
3. dramatic irony.
   
4. pathetic fallacy.
   
5. intentional fallacy.
   

It is a beauteous morn, opinion grants.
Nothing remains of last night's Summer Formal
Save palms and streamers and the wifely glance
Directed with more watchfulness than normal,
At listless mate who tugs his necktie loose,
Moans, shuns the light and gulps tomato juice.

 

The poem parodies

1. Coleridge.
   
2. Byron.
   
3. Frost.
   
4. Wordsworth.
   
5. Dylan Thomas.
   

Which lines are spoken by Volpone?

Which by Shylock?

Which by Falstaff?

1. Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here
   In quantity equals not one of yours.
   

2. A diamond gone cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort!
   The curse never fell on our nation till now ; I never felt it till now.
   

3. Let good Antonio look he keep his day,
   Or he shall pay for this.
   

4. Good morning to the day; and next my gold!
   Open the shrine, that I may see my saint.
   

5. I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought.
   

On a table in the middle of the room was a kind of lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and peaches and grapes piled up in it which was much redder and yellower and prettier than real ones is but they warn't real because you could see where pieces had got chipped off and showed the white chalk or whatever it was underneath....There was some books too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table. One was a big family Bible, full of pictures. One was
Pilgrim's Progress
, about a man that left his family it didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough. Another was “Friendship's Offering,” full of beautiful stuff and poetry but I didn't read the poetry.

The narrator of this passage is

1. David Copperfield.
   
2. Dreiser's Carrie.
   
3. Crane's Maggie.
   
4. Huckleberry Finn.
   
5. Lambert Strether.
   

Which best explains the significance of the false fruit?

1. The narrator is starving.
   
2. The narrator has never seen fake fruit before, emphasizing the innocence of the character.
   
3. The fruit looks amusing and the narrator has a keen sense of humor.
   
4. The fruit symbolizes the deprivation in the narrator's life.
   
5. The fruit symbolizes the false front put up by the family who owns it.
   

Why are the books used ironically here?

1. The narrator cannot read.
   
2. The family is not peace-loving.
   
3. The family cannot read.
   
4. The narrator loves reading but not poetry.
   
5. The family is not pilgrims.
   

Which is an example of Eliot's symbolism?

Which demonstrates Eliot's poetic paradox?

Which demonstrates Eliot's probing the unconscious for his imagery?

1. For I have known them all already, known them all:
   Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
   I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.
   

2. NO! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
   Am an attendant Lord, one that will do
   To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
   Advise the prince...
   

3. I do not know much about gods, but I think that the river
   Is a strong brown God.
   

4. The stair was dark
   Damp, jagged, like an old man's mouth drivelling beyond repair,
   Or the toothed gullet of an aged shark.
   

5. What we call the beginning is often the end
   And to make an end is to make a beginning
   The end is where we start from
   

A volume of ___'s poems lay before him on the table. He opened it cautiously with his left hand lest he should waken the child and began to read the first poem in the book:

He paused. He felt the rhythm of the verse about him in the room. How melancholy it was! Could he, too, write like that, express the melancholy of his soul in verse? There were so many things he wanted to describe; his sensation of a few hours before on Grattan Bridge for example...The child awoke and began to cry.

The volume of poems is written by

1. Gerard Manley Hopkins.
   
2. Wordsworth.
   
3. Tennyson.
   
4. Wallace Stevens.
   
5. Lord Byron.
   

The author of the above passage also wrote

1. Sons and Lovers.
   
2. To the Lighthouse.
   
3. The Damnation of Theron W
   are.
   
4. Ulysses.
   
5. Jude the Obscure
   .
   

____ world is not ours, and perhaps we are too neglectful of the graces by which he sets such store. But when a man threatens his young son that spies report to his father on his conduct, and advises him to have affairs only with women of quality, who will combine adultery with polishing his manners, we may well consider him an unpleasant mixture of Polonius and Pandarus.

 

Whose world is described here?

1. Richardson's
   
2. Addison's
   
3. Swift's
   
4. Sterne's
   
5. Chesterfield's
   

In which literary work does Pandarus feature?

1. A Midsummer Night's Dream
   
2. Chaucer's “The Miller's Tale”
   
3. Chaucer's Troylus and Criseyde
   
4. Bolt's
   A Man For All Seasons
   
5. Eliot's
   Murder in the Cathedral
   

Which best describes a pander's role?

1. He sacrifices his own interests for other people's.
   
2. He acts as a go-between in political matters.
   
3. He acts as a liaison in sexual intrigues.
   
4. He sends important messages between people.
   
5. He flatters people and helps them get on in business.
   

And he to me: “The whole shall be made known;
Only have patience till we stay our feet
On yonder sorrowful shore of Acheron.”

 

Abashed, I dropped my eyes; and, lest unmeet
Chatter should vex him, held my tongue, and so
Paced on with him, in silence and discreet.

“he to me” (line 1) are

1. Ulysses to Patroklus.
   
2. God to Adam.
   
3. Adam to Eve.
   
4. Homer to Odysseus.
   
5. Virgil to Dante.
   

Who journeys on the river Acheron?

1. The souls of the joyous going to heaven
   
2. The bodies of soldiers going to rest
   
3. The souls of unbaptized children going to Limbo
   
4. The souls of the damned going to Hell
   
5. The souls of the saved going to Purgatory
   

Which best paraphrases the second stanza?

1. Angry, I glared at him, accepted his taunt and continued seething silently.
   
2. Ashamed, I avoided his glance, and in case my useless talking angered him, I silently walked by his side.
   
3. Embarrassed, I turned away and wanting to meet others, left him standing there silent and angry with me.
   
4. Awkward, I looked down, and not wanting to anger him further with my chit-chat, walked on ahead of him in silence.
   
5. Bored, I looked away and thought it was unseemly of me to talk, so I walked by his side silently and apart.
   

“‘His last word—to live witch”' she insisted. “‘Don't you understand I loved him—I loved him—I loved him.'”

I pulled myself together and spoke slowly.

“‘The last word he pronounced was—your name.'”

The narrator is

1. the Director.
   
2. Marlow.
   
3. Dr. Rieux.
   
4. Edith Summerson.
   
5. Ishmael.
   

The true last words were

1. “Ah! My angels!”
   
2. “I don't complain of none, dear boy.”
   
3. “The sun... the sun.”
   
4. “The horror! The horror!”
   
5. “Dear old Flo! Master wouldn't hurt you. Come here!”
   

Which of the following explains why the narrator lies?

1. The woman is the dead man's wife and the narrator tells her what she wants to hear.
   
2. The woman is the dead man's mistress who left him for another man.
   
3. The woman is the dead man's fiancee who loves flattery.
   
4. The woman is the dead man's fiancee who believes in the man's goodness—the narrator knows the man's innate evil.
   
5. The dead man had had many affairs—his last words were not this woman's name but another's.
   

The function of the older son is to contrast the father's attitude to him, the loyal steadfast one, and the younger wastrel son. If the father had had only the one son the jubilation of his return would be more understandable. A deep-rooted sibling rivalry perhaps sparks the outcry of the older son.

 

In the above story, why does the father rejoice to see the younger son return?

1. This boy is the father's favorite.
   
2. The father cannot tolerate the rivalry between the two boys and teaches the older one a lesson.
   
3. The younger son represents the sinner welcomed back into God's forgiveness.
   
4. The younger son represents the Oedipal complex which the father has forgiven.
   
5. The younger son failed and is now back in the power of the father.