Free American Literature MCQs with Answers

• A. Settled in Northeastern US
• B. Kept the Navajo Origin Legend through oral tradition
• C. Believed that corn was crucial to creation
• D. B and C

Explanation: Navajo origin accounts were preserved through oral tradition, and corn holds a central place in Navajo creation beliefs.

• A. Introduced domestic animals to the Navajo
• B. Made houses of saplings bent into domes
• C. Legend From the Houses of Magic
• D. B and C

Explanation: Pima traditions include the creation account associated with the Houses of Magic, and their traditional dwellings were dome-shaped…

• A. Robert Frost
• B. R. W. Emerson
• C. Walt Whitman
• D. Edgar Allen Poe

Explanation: Walt Whitman is often called the representative or national poet of America because his poetry celebrates American democracy…

• A. Exaggerated and embellish events and depicted Native Americans as barbaric
• B. In the General History of Virginia, attempted an objective, journalistic style
• C. Was saved by Squanto
• D. A and B

Explanation: John Smith’s writings sometimes embellished events and portrayed Native Americans through hostile colonial assumptions, while his General…

• A. Belonged to the Delaware tribe
• B. Fasted 450 times for sins he committed
• C. Wrote about the trial of Martha Carrier
• D. B and C

Explanation: Cotton Mather was a Puritan clergyman who wrote about the Salem witch trials, including the case of Martha Carrier, and his biographies…

• A. Sherwood Anderson
• B. Robert Lee Frost
• C. William Faulkner
• D. Carl Sanburg

Explanation: Winesburg, Ohio is a 1919 cycle of linked stories by Sherwood Anderson.

• A. William Faulkner
• B. Tennessee Williams
• C. Robert Penn Warren
• D. T.S.Eliot

Explanation: The Southern Renaissance is associated with writers such as Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and Robert Penn Warren. T. S.

• A. He sends a young man to retrieve it
• B. He sends his grandmother to cast a spell on him that causes Sharp-elbow to consent to anything asked of him
• C. He takes a whetstone with him to retrieve the arrow and when Sharp-elbow attacks he uses the whetstone for protection against the attack
• D. He lights four prayersticks and asks the gods to retrieve it for him

Explanation: Hare carries a whetstone when he goes to recover the arrow and uses it as protection when Sharp-elbow attacks him.

• A. To include the tribe's favorite food, corn, into the myth
• B. To warn its youth about the consequences of promiscutiy and other inquities
• C. To explain how floods came into existence
• D. To explain how earthquakes came into existence

Explanation: The Zuni flood story presents the disaster as a consequence of moral corruption, including promiscuity and other wrongdoing.

• A. De Vaca
• B. Johnathan Edwards
• C. Cortez
• D. Vasco de Gama

Explanation: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca recorded his experiences during the Narváez expedition through Florida and the wider southern region of North…

• A. Idealism
• B. Slavery
• C. Romanticism
• D. Nationalism

Explanation: Maria Stewart's speeches promoted racial uplift, self-determination and collective action among African Americans, linking her with the…

• A. Discovery of America by Columbus
• B. Discovery and settlement of the Western continent
• C. early English settlers
• D. missionaries settled in America

Explanation: The opening phase of American literary history covers European discovery and the settlement of the western continent.

• A. Dekonawidah planted the Tree of Great Peace
• B. Powerful enemy of the Delaware tribe
• C. The tribe drafted a constitution to define the governance of their society
• D. All the above

Explanation: The Iroquois Confederacy is associated with Dekanawidah and the Tree of Great Peace, resistance to rival tribes, and the Great Law of…

• A. General History of Virginia
• B. Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves
• C. Walum Olum
• D. Beowulf

Explanation: John Smith’s A General History of Virginia records early colonial encounters, including the killing of two settlers by a large group of…

• A. Black community in America
• B. identity of Blacks in The United States
• C. Survival and continuation of the Black community
• D. restoration of a language

Explanation: For African Americans, Black language is more than a means of communication: it preserves cultural identity and helps the community…

• A. a wide range of emotion from joy to sorrow
• B. His style of writing
• C. the joyous moment
• D. a feeling of excitement

Explanation: Whitman’s long, flowing lines and varied diction reflect the broad emotional range of his poetry, from delight and freedom to grief and…

• A. Seeing his mother die
• B. Watching a slave get beaten to death
• C. Watching his aunt get whipped
• D. Watching his dad beat his mother

Explanation: Douglass first confronts the brutality of slavery when he sees his aunt Hester violently whipped by Captain Anthony.

• A. The Rocky Mountains.
• B. The Appalachian Mountains.
• C. The Sierra Nevada Mountains.
• D. The Sierra Madre Mountains.

Explanation: Bret Harte places “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” in the Sierra Nevada region of California during the gold-rush era.

• A. Genre that details life exerpeinces of white americans in early america and critiques american society to native americans.
• B. Genre that details life experiences of native Americas in early America and critiques American society to native Americans.
• C. Both A and B
• D. None of the above

Explanation: American Indian autobiography records the life experiences of Indigenous people and often exposes the effects of colonialism and the…

• A. as a pro- slavery argument
• B. the author was a runaway slave
• C. as a view point from Canada
• D. as propaganda against slavery

Explanation: Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin to expose the cruelty of slavery and influence public opinion against it.