Microplot Quiz

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Welcome to the Microplot Quiz!

Below are microplots: thumbnail descriptions of works of literature that are taught in classes at CCSU. See if you can recognize them! Click the heading for the answers and the classes where you might encounter them.

"A ghost and a prince meet, and everyone ends in mincemeat."

Author/Title

(Arthur Schwartz/Howard Dietz from "That’s Entertain­ment) William Shakespeare, Hamlet

English @ CCSU

ENG 220
ENG 462

A man spends the day walking around Dublin—epic!

Author/Title

James Joyce, Ulysses

English @ CCSU

ENG 458
ENG 489

A thousand ships. Ten years. Seven laps. One heel.

Author/Title

Homer, The Iliad 

English @ CCSU

ENG 203
ENG 363

A woman thinks her husband’s dead; sadly, she’s mistaken.

Author/Title

Kate Chopin, “Story of an Hour” 

English @ CCSU

ENG 211
ENG 343

A woman’s life runs the emotional gamut from A to…well…A.

Author/Title

Nathanial Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

English @ CCSU

ENG 210
ENG 341
ENG 348
ENG 448

Antebellum baby ghost haunts house, haunts America.

Author/Title

Toni Morrison, Beloved

English @ CCSU

ENG 211
ENG 343
ENG 345
ENG 348
ENG 448

Caribbean woman goes to Africa to teach and find her roots. Instead, has ill-advised affair with top government thug.

Author/Title

Maryse Condé, Heremakhonon

English @ CCSU

ENG 211
ENG 388
ENG 488

Daddy is a preacher; I think I like boys.

Author/Title

James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain

English @ CCSU

ENG 211
ENG 343
ENG 345

Daughters: Mahjong and Mother's stories. Lots of stories. I mean, LOTS and LOTS of stories. Mothers: Daughters never listen.

Author/Title

Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

English @ CCSU

ENG 204
ENG 348

Englishmen arrive. Things fall apart.

Author/Title

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart 

English @ CCSU

ENG 204
ENG 388
ENG 488

Grieving witness of police shooting finds voice, chooses resistance.

Author/Title

Angie Thomas -The Hate U Give

English @ CCSU

ENG 343

Heroic (?!) lover: 144 women in 3 days!

Author/Title

John Suckling, “Out Upon It!”

English @ CCSU

ENG 205
ENG 333
ENG 358
ENG 458

Kills Dad. Solves puzzle. Marries Mom. Plagued.

Author/Title

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

English @ CCSU

ENG 203
ENG 363

Learned to read, escaped, changed nation.

Author/Title

Frederick Douglass, Autobiography

English @ CCSU

ENG 210
ENG 340
ENG 348
ENG 448

Man and woman fall off and hook up; one greater man puts them back in their chair. Boo hsssssssss.

Author/Title

John Milton, Paradise Lost

English @ CCSU

ENG 205
ENG 451

Man Killed. Woman raped. Baby abandoned. I have faith in humanity!

Author/Title

“Rashomon,” directed by Akira Kurosawa

English @ CCSU

CINE 201
CINE 220

Man plays ball against Death.

Author/Title

August Wilson, Fences

English @ CCSU

ENG 344

Man seduces woman with a bug!

Author/Title

John Donne, “The Flea”

English @ CCSU

ENG 205
ENG 333
ENG 358
ENG 458

Modern world shattered! Poet applies glue!

Author/Title

S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”

English @ CCSU

ENG 206
ENG 339
ENG 477

Neighbors weird and dear, good gossip, watershed memory.

Author/Title

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

English @ CCSU

ENG 211
ENG 347
ENG 388
ENG 488

Overworked nanny worries about her mother, takes over The New Yorker.

Author/Title

Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy

English @ CCSU

ENG 211
ENG 343

Plucky nanny, brooding aristocrat, madwoman in the attic—it gets hot!

Author/Title

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

English @ CCSU

ENG 215
ENG 358
ENG 458

Populist demagogue assassinated. Good idea? You be the judge!

Author/Title

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

English @ CCSU

ENG 220
ENG 462

Reading transcripts of torture in El Salvador is a hard job, so he drinks.

Author/Title

Horacio Castella­nos Moya, Senselessness

English @ CCSU

ENG 347
ENG 388
ENG 488

Shipwrecked prince meets innocent maiden, monster, and father-in-law from hell: it’s magical!

Author/Title

William Shakespeare, The Tempest 

English @ CCSU

ENG 220
ENG 461

Smartest girl in Mexican village acts as courier for narcotraffickers, and her mom. Ends up in Jersey.

Author/Title

Yuri Herrera, Signs Preceding the End of the World

English @ CCSU

ENG 347

Sol, come home. I'm cold and tired of looking at the kids!

Author/Title

Anne Bradstreet, "A Letter to her Husband Absent upon Employ­ment"

English @ CCSU

ENG 210
ENG 340
ENG 348
ENG 448
ENG 522

Sudanese grad student seduces lots of Londoners. Goes back home, seduces everyone.

Author/Title

Tayeb Saleh, Season of Migration to the North

English @ CCSU

ENG 204
ENG 388
ENG 388

Sweet, dumb slacker gets deported to tiny Mexican pueblo, where opportunities for advancement are surprisingly spectacular.

Author/Title

Maceo Montoya, The Deportation of Wopper Barraza

English @ CCSU

ENG 347

Three drunken revelers set out to kill Death.

Author/Title

Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Pardoner’s Tale”

English @ CCSU

ENG 205
ENG 331

Under-employed Los Angeles writer time travels into slavery. Can’t save anybody.

Author/Title

Octavia Butler, Kindred

English @ CCSU

ENG 211
ENG 345

Under-employed Los Angeles writer time travels into slavery. Can’t save anybody.

Author/Title

Octavia Butler, Kindred

English @ CCSU

ENG 215
ENG 343
ENG 345

War vets in Texas make a big mess. High body count

Author/Title

Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

English @ CCSU

ENG 344

Worst captain ever chases biggest whale ever; now swimming home.

Author/Title

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

English @ CCSU

ENG 341
ENG 348
ENG 448

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