Free The Novel MCQs with Answers

• A. It is a necessary part of the social order.
• B. It is essentially fair.
• C. It is monstrous.
• D. It will naturally fall out of favor.

Explanation: Walpole presents primogeniture as monstrous because the inheritance system produces Manfred's desperate tyranny and attempted usurpation.

• A. To represent the expansion of Gothic literary spaces from only subterranean spaces to attics as well
• B. To represent the shift from the male Gothic villain to the female Gothic villain in the Victorian Gothic novel
• C. To make reference to the rise of personal responsibility in Victorian England for the care of the sick and insane
• D. To make an ironic statement about the point of view and marginalization of the "Other" in Victorian England

Explanation: Calling Bertha the “madwoman in the attic” highlights how the supposedly mad woman is confined and silenced as an excluded Other.

• A. The relative location of the room in which the "troubled" women are kept
• B. The state of disrepair when the houses are first encountered by the protagonists
• C. The relative location of the houses within the larger communities
• D. The relative age of the houses

Explanation: The house in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is marked by neglect and disrepair, whereas Thornfield is an occupied and functioning estate despite…

• A. The reference to ancestral halls
• B. The uncommon nature of the event
• C. The first-person narrator
• D. The dichotomy between the concepts of ordinary and estate

Explanation: The first-person point of view does not by itself suggest the Gothic, since it is simply a narrative technique.

• A. That sexual purity was less important than society's safety
• B. That female sexuality is dangerous and must be destroyed
• C. That women are not one-dimensional
• D. That men consider themselves responsible for their own fates

Explanation: Lucy’s transformation into a vampire links female sexual awakening with danger, while her destruction restores patriarchal and social…

• A. It is the scene of violence.
• B. It is the scene of sexual transgression.
• C. It is the scene of redemption for the Byronic hero.
• D. It serves as a kind of prison.

Explanation: Unlike many earlier Gothic castles and convents, Thornfield becomes the setting in which Rochester’s moral pride is broken and his…

• A. She creates a strong male hero to rescue Emily.
• B. She is not concerned with issues of rightful inheritance.
• C. She sets the novel in present day.
• D. She resolves the appearance of supernatural phenomena.

Explanation: Walpole often presents supernatural events as genuinely mysterious, whereas Radcliffe typically supplies rational explanations for…

• A. Satire
• B. First-person narration
• C. Realism
• D. The uncanny doubling of characters

Explanation: Radcliffe repeatedly uses Gothic doubling, in which characters, identities or situations mirror one another and create uncanny…

• A. As a commentary on Victorian England
• B. As an apolitical horror story
• C. As a novel ghostwritten by Perce Shelley
• D. As an exploration on the effects of science on humanity

Explanation: Frankenstein examines the consequences of scientific ambition when it is separated from ethical responsibility, making it a major…

• A. Dracula as foreign invader
• B. Dracula as sexual predator
• C. Dracula as usurper of the British class system
• D. Dracula as transgressor of God's order

Explanation: Dracula is presented as a foreign invader, sexual predator and violator of divine order.

• A. Unnatural forces overwhelming human endeavor
• B. The rupture of the everyday by acts of violence
• C. The destruction of humanity through scientific experimentation
• D. The return of the past to the present

Explanation: The Castle of Otranto centres on supernatural inheritance, violence and the return of the past, not on scientific experiments destroying…

• A. The triumph of reason over passion
• B. The rise of individual responsibility
• C. The social and fiscal independence of women
• D. The negative critique of Catholicism

Explanation: Udolpho reflects the period's growing emphasis on individual judgment and responsibility, but not women's social and fiscal independence…

• A. Its protagonist is at risk for sexual transgression.
• B. It is a Bildungsroman.
• C. It explains strange phenomena.
• D. The theme of imprisonment is prominent.

Explanation: Jane Eyre combines Gothic elements with the Bildungsroman form, tracing Jane's moral, emotional, and social development from childhood to…

• A. He threatens to spread his madness to women.
• B. His sexuality appeals to women.
• C. He protects women's chastity and virginity.
• D. He provides a way for Victorian men to blame their actions on women.

Explanation: Dracula's erotic power attracts and threatens Victorian women, challenging the period's ideal of controlled female sexuality and male…

• A. The normal activity of vivisection is represented as horrible.
• B. Seemingly normal characters are actually terrifying.
• C. The dramatic landscape provides an alternative to the usual world.
• D. The monster's grotesque body is actually made of human parts.

Explanation: Frankenstein creates uncanniness by making the familiar human body strange: the monster's grotesque form is assembled from human parts.

• A. Frankenstein's monster
• B. Mary Shelley
• C. Robert Walton
• D. Frankenstein

Explanation: Victor, Walton, and even Mary Shelley can be read as Promethean figures because they pursue or create knowledge and challenge limits.

• A. The undead
• B. The outcast
• C. The cursed
• D. The transgendered

Explanation: Manfred embodies the cursed and illegitimate ruler whose family has usurped the castle and remains under a supernatural curse.

• A. It is lavishly furnished.
• B. It is haunted.
• C. It contains a secret passageway.
• D. It does not lock from the inside.

Explanation: Emily’s chamber is unusual because she cannot secure it from within, leaving her vulnerable to intrusion and reinforcing the novel’s…

• A. It includes apocalyptic themes.
• B. It represents society as relatively stable.
• C. It condemns the misuse of power.
• D. It predicts the upheaval of society.

Explanation: The Monk reflects revolutionary anxieties by exposing how religious and social authority becomes corrupt when power is abused.

• A. It introduces one of several supernatural elements into the plot.
• B. It dispels the anti-Semitism associated with the Gothic novel.
• C. It offers a positive alternative to the excesses of the Catholic Church.
• D. It suggests that redemption is possible through penitence.

Explanation: The Wandering Jew is an explicitly supernatural figure, adding to the novel’s mixture of Catholic legend, demonic forces, ghosts and other…