What Lies Beneath Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

In announcing in the title that it is a "legend", Irving is telling us from the start that this 1820 story "may" be based on truth, but that the work is fully fictional. He weaves the tale of a young teacher, Ichabod Crane, who arrives at Sleepy Hollow and ingratiates himself into the community. He woos the lovely Katrina, daughter of a wealthy farmer (though the attraction for Ichabod appears to be her father's wealth). He doesn't have things his own way though; he has a rival for Katrina's affections in Brom Bones, a local hero. This proves to be great fodder for the local gossipers. After Katrina rejects his proposal, Ichabod is (supposedly) confronted by the Headless Horseman on his way home. From this point he is never heard of again which opens a range of mysteries for a town that is built on superstition.

Despite the supernatural concepts that permeate through this tale, the underlying theme here is greed. Ichabod exhibits it with his wanting Katrina's father's wealth. It is a desire that is exaggerated by Irving to such a degree that it almost borders on being absurd. Katrina, for her part, is also a greedy little minx. In her case, she thrives on the notion that there are two men squabbling over her and the public attention/notoriety that it brings her.

Answer: The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

In the words of Bob Dylan, "the times they are a-changing". Written in 1898 and set towards the end of the 19th century, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" presents us with a sentimentalized Old West clinging desperately to its dying old ways and endeavouring to fend off the civilized stylings moving in from the East. Crane uses the town drunk, a belligerent sot by the name of "Scratchy" Wilson, as the representation of the old ways that are fading away. Wilson tries every trick he knows to lure the recently married sheriff into a showdown but the lawman, a symbol of the new ways, doesn't take the bait, leaving Wilson frustrated and insignificant.

Crane beautifully builds the narrative by focusing on the newlywed Jack Potter and the guilt that he feels about his new state. Whilst his responsibilities have been locked on the town, his new bride adds another dimension to these duties and he wonders how the town will respond. This changes for him when he turns down Wilson by virtually telling him "I can't, I'm married"; he hammers the nail in the coffin of the past and solidifies where he stands in his own mind. The cleverness of Crane comes to the fore by not naming the bride, apart from calling her either "the bride" or "Mrs. Potter". In this way she represents the unknown future and the changes that are still to come.

Answer: Sonny's Blues

James Baldwin's 1957 short story is told from the perspective of Sonny's brother, a black mathematics teacher in Harlem during the 1950s, and how he copes with Sonny's drug addiction and his slow climb to recovery.

The setting and time period are important to this tale. America is at the crossroads and, whilst still somewhat conservative in nature it is on the verge of some radical changes. New York is becoming a hub for a new generation of artists, poets, songwriters and musicians. It is becoming the new bohemia. At the same time, slightly further north, returning soldiers who were expecting to find job opportunities are confronted with slums, poverty, drug abuse and crime. The civil rights movement is beginning to gather momentum and, in Sonny's words, Harlem is a symbol of that up-swell, and one that appears set to explode.

Baldwin conveys these frustrations and potential with the clever use of juxtaposition. He matches the lightness, that he conveys with warmth and hope, like the youth Sonny's brother sees in Sonny's face, against the darkness that talks of the gloom and the despair that are the personal issues of the main characters. Sonny's addiction and time in prison comes to the fore here. Somehow, Baldwin manages to find a balance between the desolation and salvation.

Answer: The Devil and Daniel Webster

A down-on-his-luck farmer, Jabez Stone, agrees to a deal with the devil, disguised as a trickster called Scratch and, when the time comes for the devil to collect, Stone hires a lawyer, Daniel Webster, to get him out of the contract. In this 1936 short story, author Stephen Vincent Benet blends the mythical tale of Faust with strong stirrings of Americana as he wheels and deals for the soul of his client.

The odds are firmly stacked against Webster as the devil produces the contract, which clearly shows Stone's signature on the agreement. Rather than contest the contract, Webster calls for a trial... after all, every American has the right to a fair trial. Knowing that the devil is not likely to agree to a trial he proposes this deal: "you select the entire jury AND the judge". Webster is canny here, as he has appealed to the devil's pride, a contest he was sure the demon would not back away from. The devil doesn't back down and, while licking his lips, he assembles the biggest rogues gallery America has to offer to fill the jury and the judge's position. Webster then goes to work with a great oratory that appeals to the villains on what it means to be a man, specifically an American man and the type of men they could have been. This reaches them and, like the true rogues that they are, they turn on the devil, surprising him by finding for the defendant.

Answer: The Big Blonde

This 1929 Dorothy Parker short story is set during Prohibition. Hazel Morse is an attractive twenty-year-old who works as a model and loves to socialize. She receives numerous marriage proposals that she turns down. As she approaches thirty, she meets Herbie, who makes her laugh, and they marry six weeks later. The laughter eventually stops, and the marriage dies. Hazel looks for solace in alcohol and her old ways. She smiles, because it makes the men happy, but her relationships are merely drifting affairs that simply add to her loneliness.

Parker's beautifully written tale shows that the gap between fun and melancholy is but a small one and that alcohol cannot remedy an empty heart nor an empty mind. Her protagonist has built her identity on the bricks of the expectations of those around her, laughing on the outside, being a good sport but, ultimately, this is merely a superficial barrier that cannot hide the lack of love she feels... which, in turn, intensifies Hazel's plight.

Answer: The Gold Bug

"The Gold Bug" was published in 1843 in three instalments in The Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. That seems almost apt, as there are three very clear sections in this tale; the introduction, the mystery and the solution. At the start we are introduced to William Legrand, a formerly wealthy resident of New Orleans who's fallen on hard times and hidden himself away on the east end of a small island in South Carolina. He is accompanied by his loyal slave Jupiter.

Legrand is an amateur naturalist and, while fossicking for insects, uncovers a bug that has a beautiful golden body, which he wraps in a piece of parchment found on the ground nearby. He reveals it to a lieutenant at the army barracks on the western side of the island. The Army officer snatches it and keeps it, but returns it the next day after deciding there was no value in it. Legrand, in the meantime, discusses the bug with a doctor that has called on him but, not having the insect with him, endeavours to draw it on the piece of parchment that he'd previously wrapped it in. This is fortuitous as, when he holds it up against the firelight, the heat reveals a cipher hidden on the document. Legrand solves the riddle which, in turn, leads him directly to Captain Kidd's lost treasure.

Some scholars have identified that the theme to this tale is greed; however, to this reader, it speaks more of redemption or, rather, a man finding an opportunity to reclaim his former position in society. In the final section, Poe spends time revealing the secrets and the solution to the cipher and how the treasure is found. This is unsurprising as the author was a keen student of ciphers. He once requested the public to send him their ciphers to solve. The legend is that he solved all of them. The bug, in the end, proves to be a device that the author uses to distract the reader.

Answer: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Thurber's 1939 story of the hapless Walter Mitty is considered to be his masterpiece. He presents us with a man who is dominated by his wife, picked on by the likes of parking attendants and, generally, is very forgetful. In his daydreams he is the opposite of the man he is in real life; he becomes an ace pilot, a super surgeon, even a brilliant defense attorney. These daydreams may well be his escape from the harsh realities that he confronts each day, or they may be the cause of his forgetfulness and general helplessness. Regardless of what he pretends to be in his dreams, he returns to his realty, unchanged.

His final daydream, however, seems to be the most telling or, for want of a better phrase, the most symbolic. In this one he finds himself in front of a firing squad. He calmly smokes his last cigarette and refuses to have a blindfold. It would be easy to draw the conclusion that he is contemplating his own mortality here or that, symbolically, he is telling us that this will be the end of his daydreaming. More likely he is telling us that he knows who he is. He is not the perfect human being nor is he leading the best of lives, but these are the cards he's been dealt and he will be stoic in the face of them. He has no intention to change the life he has, telling us, in the process, that this too is a form of bravery.

Answer: The Mysterious Stranger

The writing and the publication of this novella is almost as weird and interesting as the story itself, but more on that later. The full title of the story is "No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger" and it bears an even more interesting sub-title "Being an Ancient Tale Found in a Jug, and Freely Translated from the Jug". For the purpose of this question it has been reduced to "The Mysterious Stranger".

The tale tells of a beggar lad that appears at a castle in the village of Eseldorf, Austria in 1490. The castle is the premises for a printing operation and also houses the workers of that press. The beggar boy calls himself "Number 44, New Series 864,962", which immediately puts the lad off-side with everyone except for the owner and August, a 16 year old apprentice, who is also the narrator of the story. From this point forward, a whole series of strange events, that involve the arts of magic and the supernatural, take place, happenings such as people disappearing, exact duplicates emerging of the workers, Number 44 going back and forth in time, threats of people being burned at the stake, and a maid getting turned into a cat. At the end, Number 44 reveals himself to August as a being that has no physical existence, that he is merely a thought for whom time and space have no meaning, a consideration, he said, that was beyond the ability of a human being to comprehend. Number 44's final words to August provide Twain with an opportunity to have a subtle dig at religions... "there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a Dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but You. And you are but a Thought ... wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"

This tale was written by Mark Twain in his twilight years and it appears that whilst he had the concept in his mind he struggled to translate it to paper. This is evidenced by the fact that there were a number of versions of this story and these have surfaced over the years as "The St. Petersburg Fragment", "The Chronicle of Young Satan", "Schoolhouse Hill" and, ultimately, "No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger". None of the works were completed by Twain before he passed away. "The Mysterious Stranger" was first published by Mark Twain's editors in 1916 and they put Twain's name to it. In the 1960s it was uncovered that what was published was not of Twain's design. The story was based on the last tale ("No. 44..."), however, fragments of the other stories were incorporated into it and there were significant alterations made as well. This has now been labeled as illegitimate and an authoritative version, on which this question is based, was published in 1969.

Answer: The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

Granny Weatherall is in her 80s and she is dying. She claims she has no regrets, but we find out that's not quite true. She is battling hard to keep death from her door, long enough so that she can destroy the love letters from the lover who left her standing at the altar. Published in 1930, Katherine Anne Porter then takes us through a characterization of Granny that starts with her denying that she's on her deathbed before slipping into a stream of consciousness that represent the memories of her life. She contemplates George, the man who left her at the altar; John, the man who married her and then died, leaving her as a single mother; and her daughter, Hapsy, who died giving birth to a still born child.

As she slips towards death, Granny also slips into madness and it is here that Porter displays her genius. Her writing, like Granny's mind, becomes deliberately erratic to parallel the randomness of Granny's thoughts and her imminent decline. Granny senses this as well and her mind turns to salvation. She beseeches God to save her. She gets no response and, with that, she gives up on her hold on life and slips away. Porter does not provide us with surprises or any suspense, they're not essential here. She drives home a predictable tale with the moral that we concentrate on living life rather than burdening it with regret.

Answer: The Red Pony (Part 1)

"The Red Pony" is a novella by John Steinbeck that was published in 1937. It is made up of four separate stories that were published separately between 1933 and 1936. This question deals with the first of those, also known as "The Gift".

Jody is ten years old, living on his parent's California ranch. He is bought up with two brands of discipline; the authoritarian rule of his father and the more practical advices of their expert cow-hand Billy Buck. Jody has chores to do each day such as feeding the chickens, collecting their eggs and filling the wood box. These are, essentially, a child's tasks, an apprenticeship toward more adult disciplines that will guide one through the trials of life. The next step comes soon enough when his father and Billy return from a trip to town and present him with the gift... a red pony. With the horse come a new casebook of responsibilities... to feed it, to clean its stall, to train it, all of which Jody attends to with diligence and enthusiasm.

Steinbeck gives us an inkling as to what the outcome will be. The horse is going to die. He does this by presenting us with the circle of life at every opportunity. From Jody collecting the eggs to having them served up for breakfast. From the raising of the cows to seeing them taken over the hill to the local butcher. To the buzzards that circle in the distance. Jody, in his eagerness, has given the horse too much love and become over-protective of it, so much so that when the pony is caught in a heavy downpour, it has limited defenses and develops the strangles. Jody tends to horse during the night but, when he drifts off to sleep, the horse escapes and goes off to the hills to die both naturally and alone.

It is only at the end that we realize how clever Steinbeck's writing is. Whilst Jody has been surrounded by the circle of life and death, it has always been with a sense of detachment and the reality of it only arrives with the passing of his gift. In this moment Jody makes a bigger leap to manhood than he'd thought possible.