All Free English Literature MCQs with Answers

Every English Literature question in the bank, across all chapters, each with the correct answer and a written explanation. Free and unlimited, with no account needed.

3,192 questions · page 158 of 160

  • A. Leopold Bloom
  • B. Little Chandler
  • C. Joe Donnelly
  • D. Stephen Dedalus

Explanation: Stephen Dedalus says this in Ulysses, expressing his troubled view of Irish history as an oppressive nightmare.

Correct answer: Stephen Dedalus
  • A. Molly Bloom
  • B. Mrs. Mooney
  • C. Mrs. Sinico
  • D. Gerty MacDowell

Explanation: Molly Bloom says this during her stream-of-consciousness reflections in the Penelope episode of Ulysses.

Correct answer: Molly Bloom
  • A. he is deeply invested in the nationalist cause
  • B. he hopes to join the IRB
  • C. he is disinterested in nationalism
  • D. he is opposed to the nationalist cause

Explanation: Bloom is detached from militant nationalism and favours tolerance, peaceful coexistence, and a broader human outlook.

Correct answer: he is disinterested in nationalism
  • A. it outlines the transition from child to adult in The Dubliners
  • B. it outlines the order of stories in The Dubliners
  • C. it outlines the fundamental structure of Ulysses
  • D. it outlines the movement of time in Finnegans WakeLiterary Classics

Explanation: The Linati schema maps Ulysses through its episodes, Homeric correspondences, techniques, organs, and other structural features.

Correct answer: it outlines the fundamental structure of Ulysses
  • A. Odysseus
  • B. Telemachus
  • C. Nestor
  • D. Nausicaa

Explanation: Stephen corresponds to Telemachus, the son searching for a father, while Leopold Bloom corresponds to Odysseus.

Correct answer: Telemachus
  • A. puns
  • B. parodies
  • C. unconventional syntax
  • D. All of the Above

Explanation: Joyce combines puns, parody, and radically varied syntax throughout Ulysses, changing style from episode to episode.

Correct answer: All of the Above
  • A. Leopold Bloom
  • B. Mr. Deasy
  • C. Gabriel Conroy
  • D. Molly Ivors

Explanation: Mr. Deasy's views in the Nestor episode include anti-Semitic generalisations, although the Citizen is the novel's most obvious…

Correct answer: Mr. Deasy
  • A. a newspaper
  • B. a stream
  • C. a law
  • D. a book

Explanation: Bloom frequently imagines life through images of flowing movement, especially a stream or river.

Correct answer: a stream
  • A. Who says "forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race?"
  • B. Leopold Bloom
  • C. Molly Bloom
  • D. Gabriel Conroy
  • E. Stephen Dedalus

Explanation: Stephen Dedalus makes this declaration at the end of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, reaffirming his vocation as an artist.

Correct answer: Stephen Dedalus
  • A. bildungsroman
  • B. comedy of manners
  • C. pastoral
  • D. satire

Explanation: A bildungsroman follows a young person's intellectual, moral, and artistic growth.

Correct answer: bildungsroman
  • A. vowel shift
  • B. chiasmus
  • C. acatalectic
  • D. stream of consciousness

Explanation: Joyce uses stream of consciousness and related shifts in style to follow Stephen's changing perceptions from childhood to adulthood.

Correct answer: stream of consciousness
  • A. he is conflicted by his desire to leave Ireland because he has inextricable ties to it
  • B. he is sure of his desire to become a leader like Parnell because his friends and family universally praise Irish leaders
  • C. he is committed to staying in Ireland
  • D. he deeply wants to leave Ireland, but he feels that, as an artist, he can only work with national themes

Explanation: Stephen is pulled between deep cultural ties to Ireland and his determination to escape its political, religious, and familial pressures.

Correct answer: he is conflicted by his desire to leave Ireland because he has inextricable ties to it
  • A. Aeneas
  • B. Icarus
  • C. Daedalus
  • D. Minos

Explanation: Stephen's surname, Dedalus, recalls Daedalus, the Greek craftsman who escaped Crete by making wings.

Correct answer: Daedalus
  • A. as a friend
  • B. as a family member
  • C. as a romantic hero
  • D. All of the Above

Explanation: Stephen is presented through several human and idealised relationships, including friendship, family life, and romantic experience.

Correct answer: All of the Above
  • A. the positive side of war with Germany
  • B. the supremacy of Britain
  • C. Irish nationalism
  • D. the Irish nation's inability to survive without England's help

Explanation: Irish nationalism is a recurring concern in Dubliners, but Joyce presents it alongside political paralysis, colonial dependence, and…

Correct answer: Irish nationalism
  • A. the image is presented in immediate relation to the artist himself
  • B. the image is presented is immediate relation to the artist and others
  • C. the image is presented in a way that is not purely personal
  • D. the image is presented in immediate relation to others only

Explanation: In Stephen's aesthetic theory, the lyrical form presents the image in immediate relation to the artist himself.

Correct answer: the image is presented in immediate relation to the artist himself
  • A. they sometimes clarify the connection between death and life
  • B. they are often coupled with resignation, sadness, and frustration
  • C. they create a system of hope, followed by passive acceptance
  • D. All of the Above

Explanation: Joyce's epiphanies expose sudden truths, but they often end not in action but in resignation, sadness, or frustration.

Correct answer: All of the Above
  • A. Nora Barnacle
  • B. Sylvia Beach
  • C. Molly Bloom
  • D. Augusta Gregory

Explanation: James Joyce married Nora Barnacle, whom he met in Dublin in 1904 and with whom he spent most of his life.

Correct answer: Nora Barnacle
  • A. autism
  • B. blindness
  • C. deafness
  • D. loss of limb

Explanation: James Joyce suffered from severe eye problems and became nearly blind after repeated eye operations.

Correct answer: blindness
  • A. Mr. Bennet
  • B. Wickham
  • C. Bingley
  • D. Darcy

Explanation: Darcy first appears proud and disdainful, especially at the assembly, but his integrity and later actions revise Elizabeth's judgment of…

Correct answer: Darcy