Q 01/05

The author of Heart of Darkness learned English only in his twenties; what was his first language?

A) Dutch

B) Polish

C) Hungarian

D) Czech

Answer · why

B) Polish

Polish: he was born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski and spoke French from childhood too. English came third, picked up as a merchant seaman, and he k...

Q 02/05

Whose poem 'The White Man's Burden' appeared in 1899, like Heart of Darkness?

A) Hardy

B) Kipling

C) Yeats

D) Tennyson

Answer · why

B) Kipling

Rudyard Kipling's poem urged the United States to take up colonial rule in the Philippines as a duty. Conrad's story of what such rule looked like up ...

Q 03/05

In Heart of Darkness, which relative pulls strings to get Marlow his job with the Company?

A) His uncle

B) His aunt

C) His brother

D) His father-in-law

Answer · why

B) His aunt

His aunt, who knows the wife of a high Company official. She sees him as 'an emissary of light' sent to wean ignorant millions from their horrid ways;...

Q 04/05

In Heart of Darkness, what are the two women outside the Company's office doing as Marlow goes in to sign on?

A) Counting rosary beads

B) Copying out ledgers

C) Sewing white shrouds

D) Knitting black wool

Answer · why

D) Knitting black wool

Knitting black wool, like the Fates spinning thread. Marlow later salutes them in his mind with the gladiators' farewell, since few of the men they sh...

Q 05/05

In Heart of Darkness, which commodity does the Company's trade revolve around?

A) Gold

B) Rubber

C) Diamonds

D) Ivory

Answer · why

D) Ivory

Ivory: at the Central Station, Marlow says, the word 'rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed', as if men prayed to it. Kurtz matters because he se...