1000+ Literary Theory MCQs – Part 17: Postcolonial Theory: Said, Spivak, Bhabha & Fanon

1. A book claimed to inaugurate postcolonial criticism properly was Edward Said’s ________, a specific exposé of the Eurocentric universalism which took for granted both the superiority of what was European or Western and the inferiority of what was not.

1. Pre-Raphaelitism
2. Phallocentrism
3. Orientalism
4. Existentialism

2. Who wrote the following statement: “We cannot easily say that since Mansfield Park is a novel, its affiliations with a particularly sordid history are irrelevant or transcended, not only because it is irresponsible to say that, but because we know too much to say so without bad faith”?

1. Marx
2. Said
3. Gates
4. Freud

3. Which of the following statements is the most accurate regarding Edward Said’s thesis in Orientalism?

1. (iii)
2. (iv)
3. (i) and (iv)
4. (ii) and (iii)

4. Which of the following is not true of Edward Said’s Orientalism?

1. Makes use of Foucault’s concept of discursive formation
2. Is one of the founding texts of postcolonial theory
3. Makes use of Barthes’s concept of the writerly text
4. Utilises the Gramscian notion of hegemony

5. Who is the author of Humanism and Democratic Criticism?

1. Jürgen Habermas
2. Edward Said
3. Immanuel Kant
4. Irving Babbitt

6. Which of the following American novels was used by Edward Said to illustrate American imperialism?

1. The Last of the Mohicans
2. The Old Man and the Sea
3. Moby-Dick
4. Beloved

7. Edward W. Said’s Culture and Imperialism deals with one of the following central themes:

1. The image of the Oriental in literature
2. The theory of colonialism
3. The novel as a vehicle of imperialism
4. The colonizer’s civilizing mission

8. In the context of postcolonial studies, the concepts ‘filiation’ and ‘affiliation’ found theoretical articulation in:

1. Arjun Appadurai
2. Frantz Fanon
3. Benita Parry
4. Edward Said

9. Edward Said’s reading of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park that demonstrates the deep implications of imperialism is an example of:

1. Decolonial reading
2. Contrapuntal reading
3. Nativistic reading
4. Allegorical reading

10. Eurocentric prejudices against Asian and Arab-Islamic people and culture are examined by ____ in ____.

1. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
2. Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
3. Anuradha Roy, The Folded Earth
4. Edward Said, Orientalism

11. According to Edward Said, Orientalism is

1. a field of knowledge
2. an instrument of colonial domination
3. only an archive of writings
4. a true description of the Orient

12. Who among the following developed the term strategic essentialism?

1. Edward Said
2. Homi Bhabha
3. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
4. Aijaz Ahmad

13. In Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, which of the following figures represents the subaltern trying to break free from her subalternity?

1. Sati
2. Mahasweta Devi
3. Chuni Kotal
4. Bhubaneswari Bhaduri

14. ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ by Gayatri Spivak discusses sati from the perspective of ____.

1. representation
2. liberal politics
3. the ethics of intervention
4. All the above

15. The author (editor) of Nation and Narration is

1. Homi Bhabha
2. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
3. Frantz Fanon
4. Edward Said

16. In which of his essays does Homi Bhabha discuss the ‘discovery’ of English in colonial India?

1. Nation and Narration
2. “Of Mimicry and Man”
3. “Signs Taken for Wonders”
4. “The Commitment to Theory”

17. Homi Bhabha’s intervention in the field of postcolonial theory is marked by his conceptualisation of ________. Fill in the blank with the most appropriate option from the list given below.

1. a non-essentialist theory of culture which undermines the colonial grand narrative
2. a colonial discourse of the settlers as a model to understand postcolonial texts
3. an essentialist theory of culture that builds upon postcolonial narratives
4. none of the above

18. Bhabha discussed his concept of ‘mimicry’ in the text The Location of Culture, which was published in the year ________.

1. 1990
2. 1994
3. 1992
4. 1996

19. In which of his essays does Homi Bhabha discuss the ‘discovery’ of English in colonial India?

1. “Signs Taken for Wonders”
2. “Of Mimicry and Man”
3. “Nation and Narration”
4. “The Commitment to Theory”

20. The concepts of hybridity, mimicry and ambivalence are associated with the theoretical constructs of:

1. Edward Said
2. Harish Trivedi
3. Gayatri Spivak
4. Homi Bhabha

21. Identify the key concepts of Homi Bhabha:

1. II, III and IV only
2. I, II and III only
3. I, III and IV only
4. All of the above

22. Choose the incorrect option with regard to Bhabha’s concept of mimicry:

1. It can be considered as a postcolonial way of an assertion of identity by the colonized subjects
2. The concept was originally published in The Location of Postcolonial Culture
3. The term mimicry has at its root the word mime
4. It punctures the hegemony of the colonial discourse

23. Combine the statements correctly: According to Homi Bhabha ____.

1. 1 and 4
2. 1 and 2
3. 3 and 4
4. 3 and 2

24. The ancestry of postcolonial criticism can be traced to Frantz Fanon’s ________, published in French in 1961 and voicing what might be called “cultural resistance” to France’s African empire.

1. The Grapes of Wrath
2. U.S.A. (trilogy)
3. The Wretched of the Earth
4. An American Tragedy

25. Frantz Fanon was a ________ from Martinique.

1. Cardiologist
2. Paleontologist
3. Psychiatrist
4. Podiatrist

26. The preface to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth was written by

1. Aimé Césaire
2. Ania Loomba
3. Edward Said
4. Jean-Paul Sartre

27. Which is the correct chronological sequence of Frantz Fanon’s critical works in the order of their publication?

1. Toward the African Revolution, A Dying Colonialism, The Wretched of the Earth, Black Skin, White Masks
2. Black Skin, White Masks, A Dying Colonialism, The Wretched of the Earth, Toward the African Revolution
3. The Wretched of the Earth, Toward the African Revolution, Black Skin, White Masks, A Dying Colonialism
4. A Dying Colonialism, The Wretched of the Earth, Black Skin, White Masks, Toward the African Revolution

28. Which of the following statements best articulates Frantz Fanon’s political position?

1. Colonialism will die a natural death without any violent struggle against it.
2. The African bourgeoisie can never succeed in the task of nation building.
3. Social oppression in the Third World is a matter more of race than of class.
4. Peasants and social outcasts have little revolutionary potential in Africa.

29. The Wretched of the Earth, a book by Frantz Fanon that analyses the dehumanising effects of colonisation, derives its title from ____.

1. the opening lyrics of “The Internationale”, a left-wing anthem
2. Ovid’s Metamorphoses
3. Dante’s Divine Comedy
4. lines from the song ‘This Land Is Your Land’

30. Which Nigerian novelist published his first novel, Things Fall Apart, in 1958 and was criticised by an early reviewer for affecting identity with African villagers?

1. J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Kurt Vonnegut
3. William Faulkner
4. Chinua Achebe

31. Chinua Achebe was a ________ writer writing in English. Fill in the blank with the most appropriate option from the list given below.

1. South African
2. Nigerian
3. Ethiopian
4. French

32. Which of the following did Henry Owuor-Anyumba, Taban Lo Liyong and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o object to in 1968?

1. Only (A) and (D)
2. Only (A) and (C)
3. Only (B) and (C)
4. Only (C) and (D)

33. Postcolonial criticism emerged as a distinct category only in the ________.

1. 1990s
2. 1970s
3. 1950s
4. 2000s

34. Postcolonial criticism gained currency through the influence of all the following books except:

1. The Empire Writes Back
2. Nation and Narration
3. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy
4. In Other Worlds

35. W.B. Yeats was a member of the ________ ruling class in ________.

1. Jewish / Poland
2. Amish / Sweden
3. Protestant / Ireland
4. Atheist / America

36. Postcolonial criticism took as its main subject matter ________ representations of colonial countries and criticised these for their limitations and bias.

1. White
2. Red
3. Black
4. Gray

37. Postcolonial critics would discuss the representation of which place in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness?

1. America
2. Ireland
3. Australia
4. Africa

38. Postcolonial critics reject the claims to universalism made on behalf of canonical ________ literature and seek to show its limitations of outlook.

1. Southern
2. Western
3. Eastern
4. Northern

39. Postcolonial critics celebrate hybridity and ________, the situation whereby individuals and groups belong simultaneously to more than one culture.

1. Affective fallacy
2. Constative language
3. Cultural polyvalency
4. Decorum

40. “Imagined Communities” is a concept propounded by

1. Homi Bhabha
2. Benedict Anderson
3. Partha Chatterjee
4. Aijaz Ahmad

41. “Provincializing Europe” is a concept propounded by

1. Dipesh Chakrabarty
2. Paul Gilroy
3. Abdulrazak Gurnah
4. Edward Said

42. Imagined Communities is a book by

1. Aijaz Ahmad
2. Edward Said
3. Perry Anderson
4. Benedict Anderson

43. “Imagined Communities” is a concept propounded by

1. Aijaz Ahmad
2. Homi Bhabha
3. Benedict Anderson
4. Partha Chatterjee

44. The rejection of “universalism” is a mark of

1. Deconstruction
2. Postcolonial criticism
3. Structuralism
4. New Historicism

45. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri prefer to use “Empire” rather than “imperialism”. According to them

1. The present-day empire does not have an identifiable location or centre; hence we ought to differentiate this view of Empire with an upper-case E
2. There may be many empires but only one is patently visible and operational; that is denoted by Empire with an upper-case E
3. There is only one empire and we had better recognise it; hence Empire with an upper-case E
4. The culturally dominant global empire is the only one that really matters; we signify that Empire with an upper-case E

46. In his book In Theory, Aijaz Ahmad works out the relations between which three entities?

1. Literature, Print, Theory
2. Regions, Nations, Languages
3. State, Religions, Gender
4. Classes, Nations, Literatures

47. Who wrote African Perspectives on Colonialism?

1. Albert Adu Boahen
2. Buchi Emecheta
3. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
4. Chinua Achebe

48. European colonialism reached its peak during the early ________ century.

1. seventeenth
2. eighteenth
3. nineteenth
4. twentieth

49. The Suez Canal was opened in ________.

1. 1839
2. 1869
3. 1939
4. 1969

50. Which of the following works cannot be categorised under postcolonial theory?

1. Nation and Narration
2. Orientalism
3. Discipline and Punish
4. White Mythologies

51. Which of the following works cannot be categorised under postcolonial theory?

1. Nation and Narration
2. Orientalism
3. Discipline and Punish
4. White Mythologies

52. “Provincializing Europe” is a concept propounded by

1. Edward Said
2. Dipesh Chakrabarty
3. Abdulrazak Gurnah
4. Paul Gilroy

53. Who has given the concept of inter-imperiality?

1. Laura Doyle
2. Edward Said
3. Gayatri Spivak
4. Vladimir Lenin

54. Which of these theoretical approaches originated in India?

1. Race Studies
2. Ethnicity Studies
3. Ecofeminist Studies
4. Subaltern Studies

55. Who described the nation as an “imagined community”?

1. Benedict Anderson
2. Raymond Williams
3. Perry Anderson
4. Stuart Hall

56. The term “diaspora” literally means:

1. Migration
2. Immigration
3. Journey
4. Scattering

57. Match the following:

1. c d a b
2. d c b a
3. b a c d
4. a d b c

58. In subaltern studies, the subaltern is:

1. a dalit individual
2. only the colonised
3. any oppressed individual
4. one who is not represented in history

59. Gauri Viswanathan’s work Masks of Conquest argues that English studies as a subject of study was introduced:

1. Only 1 and 2 are correct
2. Only 3 is correct
3. Only 1 is correct
4. All the 4 are correct

60. The terms monoglossic, diglossic and polyglossic, used by Bill Ashcroft et al. in The Empire Writes Back, refer to:

1. Cultural identity
2. Linguistic communities
3. Variations in speech
4. Difference in glossary

61. Postcolonial readings of The Tempest designate Caliban as:

1. the noble savage
2. a willing victim
3. a romantic dreamer
4. the resistant colonised

62. The superimposition of imperialist importations on indigenous tradition is called ________ in postcolonial studies.

1. hegemony
2. hybridization
3. othering
4. pluralism

63. Avtar Brah has written a seminal book on diaspora called ____.

1. Diaspora and Identity
2. Diaspora and Transnationalism
3. Cartographies of Diaspora
4. Diaspora and Hybridity

64. Which among the following is not a diaspora critic?

1. Raymond Williams
2. Paul Gilroy
3. Robin Cohen
4. William Safran

65. “Oppositional Aesthetics: Readings from a Hyphenated Space” is a book about “diasporics” by ____.

1. Chandra Talpade Mohanty
2. Arun Prabha Mukherjee
3. Uma Parameswaran
4. Gayatri Spivak

66. The concept of the ‘Caliban complex’ was popularised by ____.

1. Octave Mannoni
2. Octavio Paz
3. Ngũgĩ
4. Léopold Senghor

67. What is the main function of postcolonial criticism?

1. To show the ways in which most Western literature is superior
2. To draw attention to the positive effects of colonization on literature
3. To explain why there are few examples of successful non-Western literature
4. To represent the relationship between colonizers and the colonized

Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.

68. Which of the following is not a reason for the replacement of ‘Commonwealth literature’ with ‘postcolonial literature’?

1. It ignored historical processes
2. It did not foreground the relationship between the colonial past and the present
3. It was idealistic in nature
4. The term was based only on geographical considerations

69. The writer suggests that postcolonial writers ____.

1. write authentically on their own
2. are universal in their appeal
3. are politically correct
4. are located in a historical context

70. What reason does the writer attribute for the specificity of postcolonial texts?

1. The creative skills of the writers
2. The nature of the empire itself
3. The developments in literary theory
4. The developments within Commonwealth literature