Feminist Criticism – (Previous Year Questions NET | GATE)

Who, from among the following, has NOT been discussed by Simon-de-Bevoir in “The Myth of Woman in Five Authors” in The Second Sex?
(A) Montherlant
(B) Lawrence
(C) Stendhal
(D) Kafka
Ans: (D)

Who amongst the following belongs to the group of radical feminists ?
(A) Helene Cixous
(B) Monica Wittig
(C) Simone de Beauvoir
(D) Luce Irigaray
Ans: (A)

The earliest tract on feminism is
(A) Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex
(B) Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own
(C) Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(D) Mary Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies
Ans: (D)

The earliest woman novelist of significance in the 18th century is :
(A)Mary Edgeworth
(B) Aphra Behn
(C) Mary Russell
(D) Mrs Gaskell
Ans: (A)

The term “womanism” was first used by
(A) Helene Cixous
(B) Gayatri Spivak
(C) Kate Millet
(D) Alice Walker
Ans: (D)

Two among the following critics have dealt with the reproduction of motherhood in feminist theory :
I. Nancy Chodorow
II. Judith Fetterley
III. Catherine R. Stimpson
IV. Carol Gilligan
The right combination according to the code is
(A) Iand II
(B) IIand IV
(C) I and IV
(D) III and IV
Ans: (C)

While foregrounding the marginal presence of women in history in A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf refers to ______ History of England.
(A) Campbell’s
(B) Trevelyan’s
(C) Sander’s
(D) Carter’s
Ans: (B)

The author of Gender Trouble is
(A) Elaine Showalter
(B) Helene Cixous
(C) Michele Barrett
(D) Judith Butler
Answer: D

Which of the following books is written by a woman ?
(A) A Vindication of the Rights of Women
(B) Social Contract
(C) A Treatise of Human Nature
(D) The Wealth of Nations
Ans: (A)

The “madwoman in the attic” is a specific reference to
(A) The narrator of “Goblin Market”
(B) Augusta Egg’s 1858 narrative painting
(C) The Heroine of The Yellow Wallpaper
(D) Bertha Mason of Jane Eyre
Ans: (D)

Who of the following White female authors are sympathetic to the cause of the Blacks ?
(A) Margaret Drabble
(B) Nadine Gordimer
(C) Muriel Spark
(D) Jean Rhys
Ans: (B)

Given below are two statements, one labelled as Assertion (A) and the other labelled as Reason(R). Read the statements and choose the correct answer using the code given below:
Assertion (A) : Gender studies do not see an urgent need to help us navigate the various pitfalls of racism, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, and plain ignorance that flow from using “culture” as an explanatory tool.
Reason (R) : Issues relating to Women’s rights, gender roles, sexuality and family obligations are centrally implicated in the so-called clash of civilizations between Christianity or Secularism, and Islaam.
(A) (A) is only partly addressed in (R)
(B) (R) does not follow logically from (A).
(C) (R) is (A) and vice versa
(D) (A) and (R) are most logically related.
Ans: (B)

In which essay does Virginia Woolf observe that “if a writer were a free man [sic] and not a slave” to the conventions of the literary market-place, there would be “no plot, no comedy, no tragedy, no love interest, or catastrophe in the accepted style, and perhaps not a single button sewn on as the Bond Street tailors would have it” ?
(A)”How it Strikes a Contemporary”
(B) “Modern Fiction”
(C) “The Russian Point of View”
(D) “Mr. Bennett and Mr. Brown”
Ans: (B)

Julia Kristeva’s ‘intertextuality’ derives from.
a. Noam Chomsky’s deep structure
b. Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogism
c. Jacques Derrida’s differance
d. Ferdinand de Saussure’s sign
The right combination according to the code is :
(A) (a) and (b)
(B) (b) and (c)
(C) (c) and (d)
(D) (a) and (d)
Ans: (A)

The label ‘material feminism’ refers to the work of those thinkers who study inequality in terms of .
(A) gender differences.
(B) class differences.
(C) both gender and class differences.
(D) female consumerism.
Ans: (C)

Which of the following works does not have a mad woman as a character in it?
(A) The Yellow Wallpaper
(B) The Mad Woman in the Attic
(C) Jane Eyre
(D) Wide Sargasso Sea
Ans: (B)

Who among the following displays in her best work the dual influence of feminism and magic realism ?
(A) Pat Barker
(B) Muriel Spark
(C) Angela Carter
(D) J. K Rowling
Ans: (C)

 Tennyson’s poem about women’s rights and women’s sphere is :
(A) Maud
(B) In Memoriam
(C) Idylls of the King
(D) The Princess
Ans: (D)

Which among the following titles set a course for academic literary feminism?
(A) Nostromo
(B) From Ritual to Romance
(C) A Room of One’s Own
(D) A Dance to the Music of Time
Ans: (C)

This was a path-breaking feminist essay written in the 1970s which used hybrid terms like “sext” and “chaosmos.” Identify the author.
(A) Luce Irigaray
(B) Helene Cixous
(C) Julia Kristeva
(D) Simon de Beauvoir
Ans: (B)

Yet it is the masculine values that prevail., observed a famous writer Speaking cruelly, she continued, football and sport are important., the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes trivial. Name the author and the text.
(A) Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(B) Audre Lorde Age, Race, Class….
(C) Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
(D) Jean Rhys, After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie
Ans: (C)

Which of the following does not describe some of the practices/beliefs of feminist literary criticism?
(A) Feminist criticism recuperates female writers ignored by the canon.
(B) Feminist literary critics offer a criticism of the construction of gender.
(C) Feminist literary critics argue that the traditional canon is justified.
(D) Feminist literary critics mostly reject the essentializing of ‘male’ and ‘female’.
Ans: (C)

According to Julia Kristeva, it is the eruption of the ………… within the …………… that provides the creative and innovative impulse of modern poetic language.
(A) individual, tradition
(B) specific, generic
(C) semiotic, symbolic
(D) particular, general
Ans: (C)

Anna Barbauld, Laetitia Elizabeth London, Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson and Felicia Hemans are
(A) first wave feminists
(B) women poets of the Romantic period
(C) Victorian writers of popular fiction
(D) nineteenth century stage artists
Ans: (B)

Identify the gynocritics in the following list :
I. Alice Jardine
II. Elaine Showalter
III. Sandra Gilbert
IV. Kate Millett
The right combination according to the code is
(A) I and II
(B) II and IV
(C) II and III
(D) III and IV
Ans: (C)

Material feminism studies inequality in terms of
(A) only gender
(B) only class
(C) both class and gender
(D) only patriarchy
Ans: (C)

Two pioneering feminist tracts, Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch were published in
(A) 1969
(B) 1968
(C) 1970
(D) 1967
Ans: (C)

 Who is the author of Mary, and the unfinished The Wrongs of Woman?
(A) Mary Wollstonecraft
(B) William Godwin
(C) Mary Hay
(D) Elizabeth Inchbald
Ans: (A)

In her essay “Professions for Women” Virginia Woolf finds an analogy between the act of writing and …………….
(A) driving a motor car
(B) riding a horse
(C) fishing
(D) gardening
Ans: (C)

Which among the following texts can be characterised as a lesbian Bildungsroman ?
(A) Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop
(B) Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
(C) Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
(D) Ruth Pawar Jhabvala, Heat and Dust
Ans: (C)

Match the title with the author :
(a) Sexual Politics
(b) A Literature of Their Own
(c) Thinking About Women
(d) The Laugh of the Medusa
(i) Mary Ellman
(ii) Elaine Showalter
(iii) Helene Cixous
(iv) Kate Millet
Code :
(a) (b) (c) (d)
(A) (iv) (iii) (i) (ii)
(B) (iv) (ii) (i) (iii)
(C) (iii) (iv) (i) (ii)
(D) (iv) (i) (ii) (iii)
Ans: (B)

Match the works with authors:

a) Bodies that matter

b) A world of difference

c) A literature of their own

d) Vamps and thamps

i. Camille paglia

ii. Elaine Showalter

iii. Barbara Johnson

iv. Judith Butler

Choose the correct option:

(A) (a)-(i), (b)-(ii), (c)-(iii), (d)-(iv)

(B) (a)-(ii), (b)-(iii), (c)-(iv), (d)-(i)

(C) (a)-(iv), (b)-(iii), (c)-(ii), (d)-(i)

(D) (a)-(iii), (b)-(iv), (c)-(i), (d)-(ii)

Ans: (C)

Who among the following proposed that the English Language is “man made”, not “woman made”?

(A) Mary Has

(B) Dorothy L Sayers

(C) Dale Spender

(D) Carol Chomsky

Ans: (C)

 Which two of the following statements are applicable to feminist criticism?

(A) Recuperate the female writers ignored by the canon

(B) Fully endorse the social construction of gender

(C) Valorize the traditional canon uncritically

(D) Mostly reject the essentialising of ‘male’ and ‘female’

Choose the correct option

(A) (a) and (b)

(B) (b) and (c)

(C) (a) and (d)

(D) (a) and (c)

Ans: (C)

Who among the following feminist theorists posited a separate realm of female experience captured in a style of writing different from men’s?
A. Elaine Showalter
B. Luce Irigaray
C. Kate Millett
D. Simone de Beauvoir
E. Helene Cixous

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
(a) A, C and D only
(b) B and D only
(c) C, D and E only
(d) B and E only
Ans: (d)

Which two texts among the following are linked to literary feminism?
A. A Small Place
B. The Yellow Wallpaper
C. Emma
D. A Room of One’s Own

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
(a) A and D only
(b) C and D only
(c) B and D only
(d) A and C only
Ans: (c)

Match the term with the theorist:
(Term)
(a) Negritude
(b) Womanism
(c) Interpellation
(4) Louis Althusser

(Theorist)
(1) Alice Walker
(2) Jurgen Habermas
(3) Aime Cesaire
(d) Public Sphere

(A) (a)-(2), (b)-(1), (c)-(4), (d)-(3)
(B) (a)-(3), (b)-(2), (c)-(4), (d)-(1)
(C) (a)-(1), (b)-(2), (c)-(4), (d)-(3)
(D) (a)-(3), (b)-(1), (c)-(4), (d)-(2)
Ans: (D)