Star-Spangled Banter Trivia Quiz

Answer: Uncle Tom's Cabin

The quote in the question is from Jeannine DeLombard's 2012 paper "Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America" from "The Historian". Rarely has such a book been so influential. Harriet Beecher Stowe travelled to Washington DC. to see the president. It has been widely reported that Lincoln addressed Stowe with "so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war", but the quote is apocryphal.

Nevertheless, the book was written by a devout anti-slavery Christian. The goal of the book, according to US historian in 2015, Daniel R. Vollaro, was to "educate Northerners on the realistic horrors of [slavery] in the South" and to "try to make people in the South feel more empathetic towards the people they were forcing into slavery".

The plot revolved around a Kentucky farmer having to sell two of his slaves, Uncle Tom and Eliza ,and their subsequent journeys.

The novel was serialised over 40 weeks in "The National Era" in 1851. A year later, it was made into a two-volume novel. It quickly sold out its initial 5000-copy print run. A total of 300 000 copies were sold in its first year. It was the second most popular book sold in the US in the 19th century.

Answer: Jo

Louisa May Alcott used her own childhood and family life events and experiences as inspiration for inspiration, portraying herself as Jo, the second sister who was 15 at the start of the novel. (Meg was 16, Beth was 13, and Amy was 12.)
There were several similarities between the real Louisa and the fictional Jo:
1. Both Jo and Louisa aspired to be authors and were enthusiastic writers
2. Both were tomboys
3. Both were very independent for the era: they were strong-minded, with Jo in particular rejecting traditional feminine roles
4. Both were family-focused, needing to hold their families together.

This has been a very enduring novel: the characters were drawn with both virtues and flaws, closer to real people than other novels of the time, which favoured the romanticism of characters. The story was grounded in the everyday activities of family life, financial and personal struggle and the encroachment of growing up during the civil war. It also encompassed the bonds, ties and conflicts of sisterly relationships that are relevant even in contemporary society.

Answer: George Wilson

This novel chronicled the excesses of the the 1920s in America. Ostensibly, Jay Gatsby built a fortune in new money to try to lure Daisy back from her husband, the brutish Tom Buchanan (old money). Coincidentally, Daisy drove Gatsby's car and accidentally killed Myrtle Wilson in a hit-and-run. George Wilson, Myrtle's husband subsequently killed Gatsby, believing him to be the driver.
Whilst it was only faintly praised on release, this novel has been labelled as a classic in more modern times. Perhaps no other author chronicled the Jazz Age as well as Fitzgerald. It demonstrated the illusion and the crumbling of the American dream by showing how Gatsby's pursuit of wealth to win over Daisy ultimately failed, which emphasised the differences between old and new money.

The novel was beautifully written with elegant prose. It contained prominent symbolism, including the green light at the end of the Buchanans' dock (hope and unachievable dreams); the contrast between West Egg (new money) and East Egg (old money); and the ominous eyes of Dr TJ Eckleburg (on a billboard) standing in for divine judgment. It quintessentially documented the roaring twenties, replete with the era's excesses, materialism and the moral vacuum that underpinned the era. The author's characterisation of Gatsby demonstrated both romanticism and vulgarity, while the Buchanans represented the superficiality of the wealthy. Nick Carraway was portrayed as an innocent, but he is more than an observer; he is a participant, so he was biased and therefore deemed an unreliable narrator.

Answer: It was never revealed

If "The Great Gatsby" was a book that portrayed America in the 20s, then "The Grapes of Wrath" accurately portrayed the 30s. The story revolved around the Joad family, who lost everything as tenant farmers in Oklahoma, which was part of the Dust Bowl. The family travelled to California, which promised jobs and high wages, but this was not the case - there was an oversupply of labour and workers were exploited and were paid so poorly that some died of starvation. The novel had recurring themes of maintaining human dignity through communal strength and personal resilience.

The title chosen by Steinbeck's wife was a line from Julia Ward Howe's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", which in turn was a reference to Revelation 14:19-20, which was an appeal for divine justice and deliverance from oppression.

This truly was a "Great American Novel", not just because of majestic prose and universal themes: it captured a pivotal time in US history, a difficult time, but where the ideals of self-determination and enduring humanity were upheld. Steinbeck won a Pulitzer Prize for this novel, and it went a long way toward him receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

Answer: Phoebe

This was an adult novel and was controversial for its time with its themes, which included loss of innocence, identity, grief and loss, sex and mental illness. It is often read by adolescents because of its underpinning theme of angst and alienation. (It should be noted that Bruce Brooks, youth fiction author, noted in 2004 that Holden's character did not develop and remained unchanged at the end of the novel, indicating no maturation of the main character, therefore differentiating this novel from young adult fiction.) It was written in a subjective style through the eyes of Holden Caulfield and followed his exact thought processes. It is notable in that it uses the colloquial language of the times. (eg, "To shoot the bull", "Flitty").

In the first quarter of the 21st century, it was still selling over one million copies per year. It made "Time" magazine's 2005 list of the 100 Best English-Language Novels Written. It was considered a Great American Novel as it portrayed an accurate depiction of teenage alienation, angst, and rebellion. The candid and cynical tones of Holden were considered unique at the time. Whilst he was an unreliable narrator, his honesty about his own vulnerabilities made him relatable. His character was complex; despite a cynical voice, he was lonely and fragile and struggled with grief caused by the loss of his brother. The richness and exposition of Salinger's prose with universal themes resonated with readers. Salinger's depiction of the pain of growing up in a superficial adult world and Holden's need to protect children from reaching the adult phony world (hence the novel's title) made this a masterful novel.

Answer: Chief Bromden

Chief Bromden, supposedly deaf-mute and docile, narrated this novel, which, while it deals with the institutionalisation of patients with mental health diagnoses, had much broader themes.

Through Bromden's narration, author Kesey used the mental ward to represent societal control. This is personified by the ruthless and authoritative Nurse Ratched (who has no apparent medical supervision) and what the Chief calls the "Combine" - the oppressive institutional controls that are placed upon the patients. The introduction of Randle McMurphy into the ward (a ruse by him to avoid jail time) represented rebellious individuality, and through his pranks and laughter, he competed with Ratched for control of the ward. Arguably, he did more for the patients' mental health than Ratched and the 'system' have ever done for the patients. The novel demonstrated the blurring of sanity and madness as Ratched's absolute need for control, considered "sane", damages the patients' perceived "madness". Of course, McMurphy did not win, and there were other casualties, Chief Bromden being the only one who escaped the machinations of the need for societal control.

Answer: Danny

Many Stephen King novels could have made this list, including "'Salem's Lot" (1975), "The Stand" (1978) and "It" (1986). "The Shining" (1977), King's third novel, was chosen because the location, a vacant, snowbound, isolated hotel in the Colorado Rockies, was so well-drawn that it is almost a character itself. The story was about a recovering alcoholic writer, Jack Torrance, who accepted the role of caretaker of the hotel through the winter. It was a fresh start for his young family, wife Wendy and five-year-old Danny, who had psychic abilities (the 'Shining'). The hotel had dark secrets that Danny could see, but the main plot device was Jack's descent into madness, which culminated in him trying to kill his wife and son.

There were several reasons this was a great novel (which cemented Stephen King's reputation as a great writer):
1. King is a master of weaving horror and supernatural events (haunted hotel, psychic phenomena) with more 'realistic' horrors such as alcohol addiction and domestic violence.
2. The haunted hotel served as a mirror for the darkness that resides within the characters
3. There is deep and detailed access to each character's thoughts, especially Danny's vision and Wendy's descent from fear into terror.
4. What was particularly clever was that Jack's deteriorated state of mind was not caused by supernatural events but was due to his internal struggles with anger and alcoholism
5. The hotel, drawn so well with respect to its isolation, served as an inescapable pressure cooker, magnifying human vulnerability and fear.
6. As with most Stephen King novels, the horror comes not so much from the supernatural events, as from the characteristic flaws of human nature and their ability to self-destruct.

Answer: New York City, 1980s

It is telling that when most people think of the Bonfire of the Vanities, they think of Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel, not the historical event in Florence, Italy, in 1497, from which the title of the novel came. The novel was a satirical work that documented the 'excesses' of the 1980s in areas such as social class, racism, and the ambitions of the time. It is written as a sharp social commentary, with a plot that exposes the hypocrisy in all aspects of the novel's setting, high society in New York City, Wall Street, and the American judicial system.

The protagonist is a wealthy Wall Street bond trader, Sherman McCoy, who proclaimed himself as "Master of the Universe". The novel chronicled the downfall of McCoy, who lost everything after taking the wrong exit on the freeway from Kennedy International Airport into Manhattan. Wolfe wanted to capture the polarisation of New York City culture in the 80s, an aim that was fulfilled upon publication.

The book was a critical and commercial success and has often been reported as the quintessential novel of the 1980s.

Answer: France and Germany, WWII and before

This was a war novel. Our two protagonists were a blind French girl, Marie-Laure LeBlanc, who escaped Paris during WWII, and Werner Pfennig, an intelligent boy from a small town near Essen, Germany. He discovered radio in 1934, and this was destined to be his future and connection to Marie-Laure. The two were destined to meet, but this is a drastic oversimplification.

The novel deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015, and it was not hard to see why: the book was beautifully written with stunning prose and poetic imagery; it interwove two separate timelines and storylines, which added to the intrigue of the book; it used uncommon themes (for a war novel), including the author's fascination with nature and science along with the paradoxes found in fate and extremely well drawn protagonists. The novel demonstrated comfort, compassion and inspiration, which contrasted with the backdrop of war. Finally, it depicted the horrors of war not through battle conflicts but through individual stories filled with resilience and hope and the navigation of unusual and extraordinary circumstances.

Answer: Scout

The novel is set in Alabama in the 1930 which is where Harper Lee lived in her childhood. The story, in brief, is about Scout's view on how her father, Atticus, a lawyer, defended Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, exposing racism and injustice.

Scout, six at the time, is considered an unreliable narrator because she is a naif: she narrates the story through the limited (and innocent) perspective of a child (even though she was an adult looking back at her childhood at the time of writing). While she has a limited understanding of racism and prejudice which sometimes leads to misinterpretation, she, as a child, was untainted by adult prejudice so we see her narration through a lens that emphasises the injustice surrounding her world. This makes the writing, more so than the story, so powerful: whilst we see Maycomb through Scout's perspective, we as the reader know exactly what is transpiring.

Author's note. This book was part of the English curriculum I studied in Year Nine. There was a quote, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." This resonated with me as a 12-year-old. It has stayed with me for over fifty years and became part of my own world at an impressionable age. I cannot thank Harper Lee enough for showing me one aspect of life that I could embrace and shape my future.