English Novel

Assignment A
Q1. What is the significance of the book’s structure? What does each of its three parts represent? Why are the different sections given agricultural titles when the book is about industrial England?
Q2. Does Hard Times have a protagonist? Does it have a main character? What makes you think so, and who might the main character be?
Q3. As a child, Bitzer is a model pupil at Gradgrind’s school. How does his conduct as a porter at Bounderby’s bank reflect his early education? Would you consider him a “success” according to Gradgrind’s criteria? Why or why not?
Q4. What role does the supernatural play in Wuthering Heights?
Q5. What do Adela and Mrs. Moore hope to get out of their visit to India? Do they succeed?
Q6. What causes Adela’s breakdown? Why does she accuse Aziz? What qualities enable her to admit the truth at the trial?
Q7. What purpose does Part III, “Temple,” play in A Passage to India?
Q8. Analyze how Austen depicts Mr. Bennet. Is he a positive or negative figure?

ASSIGNMENT C
Q1. Compare and contrast the roles of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mrs. Bennet.
Q2. Compare and contrast the Bingley-Darcy relationship with the Jane-Elizabeth relationship.
Q3. In many ways, Wuthering Heights structures itself around matched, contrasting pairs of themes and of characters. What are some of these pairs, and what role do they play in the book?

ASSIGNEMNT C
Q1: Complete the quotation: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a ___.”
a. house
b. title
c. wife
d. dog

Q2: The Bennet family lives in the village of
a. Pemberley
b. Longbourn
c. Rosings
d. London

Q3: Mr. Bingley, when he attends the ball in Meryton, seems to be quite taken with
a. Elizabeth
b. Jane
c. Lydia
d. Charlotte Lucas

Q4: How does Mr. Darcy offend Elizabeth at the first ball?
a. He insults her father.
b. He dances with Jane too often.
c. He slaps her.
d. He refuses to dance with her.

Q5: Elizabeth’s best friend is named
a. Mrs. Phillips
b. Charlotte Lucas
c. Miss Bingley
d. Mrs. Gardiner

Q6: Why does Jane’s visit to the Bingleys end up lasting for days?
a. She gets soaked in a rainstorm and becomes ill.
b. Mr. Bingley proposes to her.
c. Mrs. Bennet forgets to send a carriage to bring her home.
d. Jane is hoping to make Mr. Darcy fall in love with her.

Q7: What does it mean that Mr. Bennet’s property is “entailed”?
a. Lady Catherine de Bourgh gave it to him.
b. It can only be inherited by a male.
c. It comes from his wife’s family.
d. He rents from Sir William Lucas.

Q8: What reason does Wickham give Elizabeth for his dislike of Darcy?
a. Darcy killed his cousin in a duel.
b. Darcy wouldn’t let Wickham marry his sister.
c. Darcy betrayed his country.
d. Darcy cheated him out of an inheritance.

Q9: To which Bennet daughter does Mr. Collins propose marriage?
a. Elizabeth
b. Jane
c. Mary
d. Lydia

Q10: Whom does Mr. Collins marry?
a. Jane
b. Lydia
c. Miss Bingley
d. Charlotte Lucas

Q11: What is the name of Sissy’s father’s dog?
a. Happylegs
b. Bandylegs
c. Merrylegs
d. Mr. Snips

Q12: What is the main principle of Mr. Gradgrind’s philosophy?
a. Fact
b. Fancy
c. Love
d. Patriotism

Q13: Mrs. Pegler is the mother of which character?
a. Gradgrind
b. Sissy
c. Stephen
d. Bounderby

Q14: Who robs the bank?
a. Stephen
b. Tom
c. Sissy
d. Mrs. Sparsit

Q15: What is the common name for poor Coketown factory workers?
a. Cogs
b. Scum
c. Hands
d. Proles

Q16: Sissy believes her father abandoned her for what reason?
a. Her own best interest
b. To elope with a Frenchwoman
c. Grief over her mother’s death
d. A desire to see the world

Q17: Which of the following characters dies during the course of the novel?
a. Sleary
b. Mrs. Gradgrind
c. Gradgrind
d. James Harthouse

Q18: Who is Kidderminster?
a. A circus worker who dresses up as Cupid
b. Mr. Gradgrind’s fellow Member of Parliament
c. Sissy’s father
d. The Hand who organizes the workers’ union

Q19: What does Rachael find that leads her to believe Stephen has been murdered?
a. A trail of bloody footprints
b. A note from the killer
c. His hat, abandoned in a field
d. An empty bottle of poison

Q20: How does Stephen die?
a. He is crushed by factory machinery
b. A fall into Old Hell Shaft
c. Murder
d. Malnutrition as a result of poverty

Q21: What is inscribed above the entrance of Wuthering Heights?
a. “Hindley Earnshaw, 1729”
b. “1623”
c. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”
d. “Hareton Earnshaw, 1500”

Q22: What kind of countryside surrounds Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange?
a. Moorland
b. Savannah
c. Forest
d. Grassy plains

Q23: What destination does the young Catherine have in mind when she leaves Thrushcross Grange for the first time?
a. Wuthering Heights
b. The fairy caves at Penistone Crags
c. The nearby village
d. London, where her cousin Linton lives

Q24: What is the name of the village near Wuthering Heights?
a. Loch Crag
b. Gimmerton
c. Heatherton
d. Purvey

Q25: In what region of England was Emily Brontë raised?
a. Sussex
b. Gloucestershire
c. Yorkshire
d. Warwickshire

Q26: Who plans to live at Thrushcross Grange at the end of the novel?
a. Young Catherine and Hareton
b. Lockwood
c. Heathcliff
d. Young Catherine and Linton Heathcliff

Q27: Over the course of the novel, which characters claim to see Catherine’s ghost?
a. Heathcliff, Hareton, young Catherine, and Joseph
b. Edgar Linton and Heathcliff
c. Joseph and Nelly Dean
d. Lockwood and Heathcliff

Q28: On what day do young Catherine and Hareton plan to be married?
a. New Year’s Day
b. The Ides of March
c. The anniversary of Heathcliff’s death
d. Valentine’s Day

Q29: Why does young Catherine climb over the garden wall?
a. To escape from the Grange
b. To meet with Linton
c. To retrieve her hat, which fell off as she stretched for the fruit of a tree
d. To escape her mother’s ghost

Q30: Who raises Hareton during the early years of his life?
a. Hindley
b. Heathcliff
c. Catherine
d. Nelly

Q31: In the opening dialogue of the novel, who is most open to the possibility of Indian- English friendship?
a. Hamidullah
b. Aziz
c. Mahmoud Ali
d. Hamidullah’s wife

Q32: Why is Aziz at the mosque where he meets Mrs. Moore?
a. Because it is the traditional time for prayer
b. Because Englishwomen have stolen his tonga
c. Because he is restless and agitated
d. Because he sensed her presence

Q33: How does Aziz sense Mrs. Moore is sympathetic to him?
a. She is knowledgeable about Islam
b. She approaches him first
c. She appears unafraid of him
d. She speaks frankly about her dislike for Mrs. Turton

Q34: Why, at the beginning of the novel, is Adela Quested dissatisfied with her visit to India?
a. Because she wants to be engaged to Ronny
b. Because she wants to see the real India
c. Because she does not get along with Mrs. Moore
d. Because she dislikes Ronny’s friends

Q35: Why does Turton throw the Bridge Party?
a. He throws one every year
b. Because his superior ordered him to
c. To please Adela
d. To please the Nawab Bahadur

Q36: Who runs their horse into the flowers at the Bridge Party?
a. Miss Derek
b. Aziz
c. Panna Lal
d. The Bhattacharyas

Q37: What is the main reason Aziz decides not to attend the Bridge Party?
a. It coincides with the anniversary of his wife’s death
b. He feels sick to his stomach
c. He wants to spend time with his children
d. He is angry with Major Callendar

Q38: What disconcerts Ronny about his mother’s story about meeting a young man in the mosque?
a. She disobeyed his orders
b. She should not be hanging around with younger men
c. Her tone of voice does not indicate that the young man is Indian
d. She sounds depressed

Q39: Which of the following does not upset Mrs. Moore on the day of Fielding’s tea party?
a. Adela and Ronny’s bickering
b. Aziz’s overfriendliness
c. Adela’s spontaneous admission that she will return to England
d. Godbole’s religious song

Q40: Which of the following does not cause Adela to change her mind and become engaged to Ronny?
a. The landscape and sky of Chandrapore
b. The sexual magnetism between her and Ronny
c. Her and Ronny’s mutual distaste for Miss Derek and the Nawab Bahadur
d. A brief lecture from Mrs. Moore