Yesterday's Cultural Literacy Quiz! (Since I Was at Home...)

[the_gneech]

Literature In English

In this novel by Sinclair Lewis, the title character, an American real estate agent in a small city, is portrayed as a crass, loud, overoptimistic boor who thinks only about money and speaks in clichés, such as, "You've gotta have pep, by golly!"

A. McTeague
B. Babbitt
C. The Great Gatsby

Answer: B. Babbitt
By extension, a "Babbitt" is a narrow-minded, materialistic businessman.

Comments

[blacktigr.livejournal.com]

Wow, I guessed Gatsby on that one.

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Huh-uh. Gatsby is by F. Scott Fitzgerald. That's all I knew ahead of time, so I guessed the other wrong one. Heh.

-=TK

[blacktigr.livejournal.com]

Honestly, hon, I've never read any of them...so it was a wild guess. I knew that Gatsby was supposedly set around the turn of the century or something, so I figured that having him say cliched sayings wouldn't be out of line.

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Oh, believe me. I've only read one piece by Fitzgerald and that wasn't it (a short story was more than enough, thankyouverymuch). We just talked about it a lot in my English classes. *Hugs*

-=TK

fushigi kumori!

[wbwolf.livejournal.com]

I got it right, but I still think of a white bat that makes wry comments on the action when I hear "Babbit"

Yes, I'm an otaku. ]:oP

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

I'm more well-read than I thought. I knew it was babbit before I even saw the choices.

Either that, or I'm more cynical...

[joeygatorman.livejournal.com]

I knew it was Babbitt, too: I easily eliminated Gatsby, and I saw Greed, the movie based on McTeague directed by Erich von Stroheim.

-Gatorman