Trivia quiz on Charles Dickens, “Bleak House” (part two, from Chap. 29 to end)

Trivia Quiz for Bleak House (part two)by Charles Dickens (1853)

For West Seattle “Classic Novels (and Movies)” book club, 2/20/22

A. The Complicated Unfolding: Characters and Relationships.

1. Secrets revealed. People’s secrets come to light in many ways—gradual and abrupt—in the second half of Bleak House. Which of the following is not a secret revealed?

a. Mrs. Rouncewell is actually George’s mother.

b. Lady Dedlock is actually Esther’s mother.

c. The will found by Mr. Smallweed in Krook’s shop actually does provide a fortune for the Jarndyce wards.

d. Mrs. Jellyby’s efforts actually do help the people of Borrioboola-Gha.

2. Mysteries remain. Despite the many dénouements in the second half, significant doubts nag at the reader. Which of the following enigmas is unresolved?

a. Why did Hortense kill the lawyer, Mr. Tulkinghorn?

b. How does Skimpole get away with sponging off of other people?

c. How did Jo get the dread virus and transmit it to Esther?

d. Whose footsteps are heard on the Ghost’s Walk at Chesney Wold?

e. All of the above remain tinged by mystery, in one way or another

Insider references: a clue to emotion. Several characters revert to stock phrases to express their feelings. Match the character to the phrase.  The characters include:  a. Mr. Bagnet; b. Mr. Jarndyce; c. Richard in the middle of the novel; d. Mr. Jellyby

3. “Never have a Mission, my dear child.”

4. “It’s rather jog-trotty and humdrum. But it’ll do as well as any thing else!”

5. “Discipline must be maintained.”                         

6. “An East wind is blowing.”

B. Social critique? Institutions and professions are skewered but reform is ridiculed too, and family is not necessarily a haven.

7. Which of the following social institutions is not condemned in Bleak House?

a. medicine                            

b. the law                               

c. charitable organizations (church, philanthropy)

d. Parliament and local governments

8. Family and broken homes. Who among the following is not an orphan, or missing one parent?

a. Ada                                     

b. Allan Woodcourt               

c. Richard      

d. George

e. Esther                                 

f. Caddy Jellyby        

g. Jo                                                   

9. At the end, Mrs. Jellyby gives up her efforts in Africa to focus on an English concern that is portrayed as equally ludicrous. What is it?

a. women’s rights                  

b. the abolition of slavery                  

c. Socialism

C. Oddities and Loose Ends

10. True or False? The heroine’s real name is not Esther Summerson, but Esther Hawdon.  T / F

11. In a novel where much of the action takes place in the fog, the weirdest meteorological phenomenon actually comes from human sources. Which one of the following passages does not describe the death of Mr. Krook by spontaneous combustion?

a. “See how the soot’s falling. Confound the stuff, it won’t blow off—smears, like black fat!”

b. “Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.”

c. “’Don’t you observe,’ says Mr. Snagsby, pausing to sniff and taste the air a little, ‘don’t you observe, Mr. Weevle, that you’re—not to put too fine a point upon it—that you’re rather greasy here, sir?’”

d. “’What, in the Devil’s name is this?’ … A thick, yellow liquor defiles them, which is offensive to the touch and sight, and more offensive to the smell. A stagnant, sickening oil, with some natural repulsion in it that makes them both shudder.”

12. Why is Lady Dedlock startled to see Esther in church one day? Choose the correct reply.

a. Esther bears a striking resemblance to her, as much as a daughter might (but Lady D. thinks her own secret child died in infancy).

b. Lady D. mistakes Esther for Hortense, the French maid she has fired, and who has vowed to bring her down in revenge.

c. Lady D. is surprised because Esther, a prominent atheist, is not known to frequent places of worship.

13. True or False? At one point, Lord Leicester is described as “a magnificent freezer.”   T/F

14. True or False? The last scene portrays the adult Esther on a moonlit porch with a loving husband who asks her, “Don’t you know that you are prettier than you ever were?”     T/F

ANSWERS

1. d. 

2. e.

3. d.

4. c.

5. a.

6. b.

7. a.

8. f.

9. a.

10.  True

11. b.

12. a.

13. False.  He is described as “a magnificent refrigerator”!

14. True

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Trivia Quiz on “Bleak House” by Charles Dickens (part one, up to Chap. 29)

Trivia Quiz on Bleak House (1853)by Charles Dickens

For West Seattle “Classic Novels (and Movies)” book club, 1/16/22

A. Bleak House Essentials I: Characters galore!

1. … and they have such funny names! Odd and humorous names abound in Dickens’s prose, and they provide a good laugh to readers. Which of the following is not a character in Bleak House?

a. An unwelcome cousin, Volumnia              b. A wicked money-lender named Uriah Heep

c. Lord Boodle, the Duke of Foodle, and the Noodle, Sir Leicester             

d. A nasty old man called Grandfather Smallweed                e. A dirty boy named Peepy       

2. … but they’re confusing. Which people are important? Bleak House is crammed with people of all sorts who bump shoulders in apparently accidental ways, on crowded city streets among other places. Yet some encounters are significant. Which one of the following encounters among characters is followed by a significant message or foreshadowing?

a. Miss Flite’s meeting with the three orphans outside Lincoln’s Inn

b. Lady Dedlock’s meeting with Lord Boodle at her home in town

c. Lady Jane’s meeting with the three orphans at Krook’s store

d. The visit to Mrs. Jellyby of some natives of Borrioboola-Gha

B. Bleak House Essentials II: The World of London

3. Compared to other London novels such as Mrs. Dalloway, there are few tourist locations named in Bleak House. Which one of the following places is named?

a. The Shard                           

b. The Victoria and Albert Museum              

c. The Tate Modern

d. Temple Bar                        

e. The Princess Diana Memorial Fountain    

f. All of the above      

C. Bleak House Essentials III: Fog

4. Many scenes take place in dark, shady neighborhoods or deep in a cold wintry fog. The fog often portends confusion, as if the characters are entering into a particularly disorganized, unruly, murky place. Which of the following places in Bleak House does not match that description?

a. The home of the Jellyby family                                         

b. Tom-All-Alone’s

c. The Court of Chancery                                                      

d. Krook’s store

e. None of the above: they all match that description

5. The House Itself: Not so bleak!  Which of the following does not describe Bleak House?

a. “delightfully irregular”                  

b. “a bountiful profusion of little halls and passages”

c. “It was the completest and most desirable bedroom ever seen—in the stern of the vessel; with a little window, and a little looking-glass, just the right height for me, framed with oyster shells.”

d. “shining out upon the star-light night; with its light, and warmth, and comfort”

6. Strange Pronouncements and Legacies. Some of the most vivid passages touch on the power of words to form a destiny or conjure up the past. Which of the following is not in the novel?

a. “It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had had no birthday; that you had never been born!”

b. “Take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous than you think in this country.”

c. “Some melancholy influence is upon her; or why should so proud a lady close the doors, and sit alone upon the hearth so desolate?”

d. “Blest! If I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the picture been engraved, miss?”

e. “The only other lodger is a law-writer. The children in the lanes here, say he has sold himself to the devil.”

D. Style and Wisdom. Charles Dickens shows great talent for describing human frailties, yet the depth of the characters’ psychology may disappoint: people often resemble their exterior and names. Name the person associated with the following quotes, from this list: a. Mr. Snagsby; b. Esther Summerson; c. Harold Skimpole

7. “It sounds—somehow it sounds, like a small sum?” 

8. “But so from rough outsides (I hope I have learnt) serene and gentle influences often proceed.”

9. “X appears: greasy, warm, herbaceous, and chewing.”

10. Maxims. Dickens famously describes Victorian attitudes in his works, and Bleak House abounds with maxims such as all of the following but one. Which one doesn’t fit?

a. “Of all the soul’s impressions, shame is the most conventional and the one most capable of being falsely applied.”

b. “Submission, self-denial, diligent work, are the preparations for a life.”

c. “There were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.”

d. “It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.”

11. True or False? An earlier name for Mr. Jarndyce’s home is “The Peaks”. T / F

ANSWERS

1. b. Readers of David Copperfield will find Uriah Heep there, but not in Bleak House.

2. a.

3. d.

4. e.

5. c. This quote is also from David Copperfield.

6. b. That warning is from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

7. c.

8. b.

9. a.

10. a. That comment is from Karolina Pavlova’s novel, A Double Life.

11. True

Good bits from “David Copperfield” (instead of a quiz)

On David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)

Sadly, the West Seattle “Classic Novels (and Movies)” book club lost momentum after our first meeting in March 2020 on Emma, due to the covid-19 lockdown during the months of April–July 2020. I didn’t make a quiz, because I had no idea if people would still be willing, outdoors, to join me in August 2020 for a discussion of David Copperfield. (They did! and our discussion ranks among my peak life experiences.)

Instead of a trivia quiz for David Copperfield, I offer some favorite bits from the novel that I copied down just for fun.

1. The wisdom of the child: a capacity of being pleased

“This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood.”
–pp. 24-25, Penguin Classics edition of David Copperfield

2. Childhood idyll: David’s bedroom in the little house of Mr. Pegotty, on the seashore

“It was the completest and most desirable bedroom ever seen—in the stern of the vessel; with a little window, where the rudder used to go through; a little looking-glass, just the right height for me, nailed against the wall, and framed with oyster shells; a little bed, which there was just room enough to get into; and a nosegay of seaweed in a blue mug on the table. The walls were whitewashed as white as mild, and the patchwork counterpane made my eyes quite ache with its brightness.” (p. 42)

[Ed. note: the bright patchwork may have been something like my first quilt, circa 1974, below]

One of the many quilts I’ve made, now available to you too!

3. Love calls: Mr. Barkis woos Pegotty

“On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis appeared in an exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle of oranges tied up in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of any kind to this property, he was supposed to have left it behind him by accident…  After that occasion he appeared every evening at exactly the same hour, and always with a little bundle, to which he never alluded, and which he regularly put behind the door, and left there. These offerings of affection were of a most various and eccentric description. Among them I remember a double set pig’s trotters, a huge pin-cushion, half of bushel of apples, a pair of jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork.

Mr. Barkis’s wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of a peculiar kind. He very seldom said anything, .. contenting himself now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable; and I remember that sometimes, after he was gone, Pegotty would throw her apron over her face, and laugh for half-an-hour.” (pp. 154-155).

4. Mr. Dick, on the dissemination of knowledge

Loved the introduction of Mr. Dick, in the part where David has re-found his Aunt Betsey (and is waiting to know what will be done with him). Mr. Dick is the eccentric and very pleasant man who lives upstairs at Aunt Betsey’s house.

When little David visits Mr. Dick in his room, and finds him working on a manuscript about King Charles I, he notes a kite in the corner. As Mr. Dick explains, “I made it. We’ll go and fly it, you and I.”
Then the narrator shows the detail:
“it was covered with manuscript, very closely and laboriously written; but so plainly, that as I looked along the lines, I thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First’s head again, in one or two places.
‘There’s plenty of string,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘and when it flies high, it takes the facts a long way. That’s my manner of diffusing ’em. I don’t know where they may come down. It’s according to circumstances, and the wind, and so forth; but I take my chance of that.’
His face was so mild and pleasant, and had something so reverend in it, though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure but that he was having good-humored jest with me. So I laughed, and he laughed, and we parted the best friends possible.”  (p. 213, Penguin edition).

[Ed. note: As author of a few scholarly tomes whose utility has never been exactly clear, though they certainly provide interesting thoughts from obscure and famous sources, and share beautiful images from rare books. During my time in academe, they provided the all-important “cultural capital” to retain employment as a professor. Yet I can think of no better way to disseminate facts than to throw them to the winds! * see the comment and next steps below]

5. Aunt Betsey’s marriage advice: not bad for a grumpy frumpy wayward woman!

“I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good many years. I am still, and shall always be. But you and I have done one another some good, Trot,–at all events, you have done me good, my dear; and division must not come between us, at this time of day.”

“Division between us!” cried I.

“Child, child,” said my aunt, smoothing her dress, “how soon it might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little Blossom, if I meddled in anything, a prophet couldn’t say. I want our pet to like me, and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your own home, in that second marriage; and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at!”

I comprehended at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife.

“These are early days, Trot,” she pursued, “and Rome was not built in a day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself,” a cloud passed over her face for a moment, I thought, “and you have chosen a very pretty and very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure too—of course, I know that; I am not delivering a lecture—to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop in her, if you can. And if you cannot, child,” here my aunt rubbed her nose, “you must just accustom yourself to do without ‘em. But remember, my dear, your future is between you two. No one can assist you; you are to work it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!”  (p. 645)

Trivia Quiz for “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens

Trivia Quiz for A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843)

For West Seattle “Classic Novels (and Movies)” book club, 12/13/20

A. Ebeneezer Scrooge et al.: Dickensian characters par excellence

1. At the beginning of A Christmas Carol, the narrator informs us that Scrooge is all but one of the following. Which is not a trait shared by the first Scrooge?

a. hard and sharp as flint                    

b. secret and self-contained

c. solitary as an oyster                       

d. a grating voice                   

e. dressed “all in his best”

2. The adult Scrooge had one friend in the world: his business partner, Jacob Marley. Unfortunately, however, Marley has died. How long ago did Jacob Marley die?

a. last week                

b. seven years ago      

c. last year      

d. yesterday

3. In his initial encounter with his nephew, Scrooge belittles those who celebrate Christmas for all but one of the following reasons. Which reason is not in the story?

a. they live in a world of fools                       

b. they worship the birth of Jesus Christ

c. they find themselves a year older              

d. they have to pay their bills without money

4. In contrast, his nephew describes Christmastime differently. Identify which phrase is not voiced by Scrooge’s nephew in describing the season, in the early scene:

a. it is a time due veneration, given its sacred name and origin

b. it is a time to clean house and wash everything

c. it is the only time, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures

d. it is a time that makes people feel good, despite the cost

B. Darkness and light: significant symbols

5. Which of the following is not in A Christmas Carol?

a. The opening scene takes place during a gloomy, foggy cold night

b. The last scene takes place on a day described as: “clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold” with “Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air”.

c. The hair of Tiny Tim is described as “golden floss, glowing like a halo”

C. The Three Spirits.  Match the descriptions below to the supernatural characters

The characters include:  a. Ghost of Christmas Present; b. Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come; c. Ghost of Christmas Past

Descriptions:                                                                                                  

6. “It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand.”

7. “It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man… its hair was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle on it… from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light.”        

8. “Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard, but no Sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.   … Notwithstanding its gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease.”

D. The Women of A Christmas Carol: Cynics or Sages?

9. Mrs. Cratchit, like Scrooge’s niece by marriage and the charwomen, refuse to honor Scrooge. The narrator, in describing their dislike for the man, seems to :

a. Excuse the behavior, with a proverb: “Bless those women; they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.”

b. Condemn the behavior, by mentioning: “What then? If she be like to die, she had better to do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

c. Accept the behavior, with the note: “Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did.”

E. History and Language

10. Which of the following details, signaling the historical situation of London in 1843, do not exist in A Christmas Carol?

a. people cook their meals in the oven at the local bakery, for lack of proper equipment at home

b. people roast chestnuts on the fire

c. people enjoy a pudding that “smells like washing day” when its cloth is unwrapped

d. people have pillow fights in the street on Christmas morning

11. Why did Charles Dickens use the word staves instead of chapters?

a. to indicate that each section is another board making up the walls of Scrooge’s prison, since a “stave” means a narrow strip of wood or iron plate, which when placed edge to edge form the sides, covering, or lining of a vessel (such as a barrel) or structure.

b. to signify that the novel was a carol in prose form, because in music a “stave” is the five lines and four spaces between them on which musical notes are written.

ANSWERS

1. e.

2. b.

3. b.

4. b.

5. c.

6.  b. This description (“It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head”) pertains to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

7. c. The Ghost of Christmas Past is portrayed as “It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man.”

8. a. The Ghost of Christmas Present is depicted as: “Notwithstanding its gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease.”

9. c.

10. d.

11. b.