Not Happily Ever After Trivia

1. In Aeschylus' tragedy "Agamemnon", the eponymous character is killed by his wife to avenge his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia. What is the murderous lady's name?

From Quiz Revenge

Answer: Clytemnestra

The first of the three tragedies that compose Aeschylus' trilogy "Oresteia", "Agamemnon" (written around the mid-6th century BC) focuses on the titular character's homecoming from the Trojan War. Agamemnon, king of Argos and Mycenae and supreme leader of the Greeks, returns home after ten years with his new concubine Cassandra, a Trojan princess and priestess of Apollo. His queen Clytemnestra, however, has been nursing a grudge against her husband since the beginning of the war because of his sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia, who was killed to appease the goddess Artemis and allow the Greek fleet to reach Troy. During Agamemnon's absence she has taken her husband's cousin, Aegisthus, as a lover, and with him has planned Agamemnon's murder. Aegisthus is also pursuing his own revenge against the king, whose father Atreus usurped his brother Thyestes' throne and killed two of his sons, feeding their bodies to their father. Cassandra, a prophetess, sees her death and Agamemnon's, but no one heeds her. Clytemnestra murders both in the bath, and then proudly stands beside Aegisthus, with whom she claims power over the city. "Agamemnon" has a stripped-down cast of characters, with the chorus - as customary in Ancient Greek drama - providing a running commentary on the action. In this case, the members of the chorus are a group of elders of the city, faithful to Agamemnon. The whole trilogy revolves around the themes of revenge and justice. In the second part, "The Libation Bearers", Orestes, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's son, avenges his father's death by killing his mother and Aegisthus. Plagued by a curse due to the heinous crimes committed by its members, the House of Atreus is caught in a seemingly endless cycle of bloody vengeance - which is broken in the trilogy's final part, "The Eumenides". Medea and Hecuba also wreak bloody vengeance on men who wronged them in the two tragedies by Euripides that bear their names.

From Quiz Not Having a Merry Christmas

Answer: Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) is well known for his fairy tales, several of which are tinged with melancholy, but few as deeply pessimistic as 'The Fir Tree', first published in December of 1844. The story tells of a small fir tree who longs to grow up and be big like those around him. Then he wants to go wherever the others go who disappear each winter, sure that it must be exciting. When he is finally selected, he realises that he will be leaving his friends behind, which saddens him, but he anticipates a fantastic future. Indeed, Christmas Eve, when he is beautifully decorated and admired, is all he had hoped for, but the following day sees him exiled to the attic, where he is visited by mice who enjoy listening to him recount the events of Christmas Eve. Then comes spring, and he is carried out into the courtyard. Just as he anticipates that he will finally have a chance to really enjoy life, he is chopped up for fuel. As the tree starts to burn, he reflects on his life, and regrets the fact that he never really appreciated the pleasures offered at each stage, because he was so focussed on the future.

From Quiz Prisoners in Literature

Answer: Jean Valjean

"Les Miserables", Victor Hugo's epic novel of revolution, love, hate and redemption tells the story of Jean Valjean's life from prison to eventual peace. It has been adapted for stage and screen many times, including the hugely successful musical.

From Quiz Left Behind

Answer: The Road

Set after an unspecified event that seems to have wiped out most of the world, "The Road" is perhaps Cormac McCarthy's bleakest work as it follows a father and son, really only referred to as 'the man' and 'the boy' as they try to travel south to survive the coming winter. The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and saw major success after being picked as an Oprah Winfrey's Book Club choice. It was adapted for the screen in 2009 with Viggo Mortensen in the lead role.

From Quiz Crazy

Answer: Ajax

Written in the 5th century BC (probably between 450 and 430), "Ajax" is one of seven surviving tragedies by Athenian playwright Sophocles. It is set during the Trojan war, after the events described in the "Iliad", but before the fall of Troy. Ajax, son of Telamon, is the strongest of the Greek heroes, and is noted for his courage. After Achilles' death, both Ajax and Odysseus claim the hero's magical armour, which Odysseus wins with the help of Athena, his protector. Furious at being cheated, Ajax tries to kill Agamemnon and Menelaus, who are responsible for awarding the armour to Odysseus. Athena, however, causes the hero to lose his mind temporarily and slaughter a herd of sheep. When Ajax comes to his senses, he kills himself out of shame.

From Quiz Revenge

Answer: Nibelungenlied

Though partly reflecting the ideals of chivalry of the High Middle Ages, the Middle High German "Nibelungenlied" ("Song of the Nibelungs") is based on a number of heroic poems in the Old Norse "Poetic Edda", probably dating from the 9th or 10th century, before the peoples of those northern lands embraced Christianity. Those poems were also the main inspiration for Richard Wagner's "Ring Cycle". The name "Nibelungs" denotes the royal house of the Burgundians, a Germanic tribe that in the 5th century AD established a kingdom on the left bank of the Rhine, whose capital was the present-day city of Worms. The first half of the poem focuses on the hero Siegfried's courtship of the beautiful Kriemhild, the sister of the three Burgundian kings, and his murder at the hands of their faithful vassal Hagen after a dispute between Kriemhild and Brünhild, the wife of Gunther, the eldest of the three kings. Devastated by her loss, and cheated of Siegfried's treasure by Hagen, Kriemhild swears vengeance, and after 13 years marries Etzel (Attila), King of the Huns. When a son is born to the couple, Kriemhild invites her brothers and their retinue to a baptismal feast in their castle in Hungary. In the ensuing bloodbath, most of the poem's key characters die: Kriemhild achieves her vengeance against Hagen and her brothers, but loses her baby son first, and then her own life. A major theme in most epic poetry, revenge makes its appearance in all the works listed as incorrect answers. "La Morte d'Arthur" by Thomas Malory, however, was written in prose.

From Quiz Not Having a Merry Christmas

Answer: Ten of the most miserable people to be found

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is known for his morality tales, often set in his native New England. 'The Christmas Banquet', published in the 1846 collection of short stories titled 'Mosses from an Old Manse', described a man's bequest that the executors of his estate should, annually, invite ten incredibly miserable people to a meal, over which they would share their stories of misery, and complain about how dreadful the world was. The founder's skeleton, suitably garbed and sporting a festive wreath, presided over the feast. The executors decided to invite a different batch of people each year, because of the extent of human unhappiness. The one exception was the annual inclusion of Gervayse Hastings, whose presence at the first banquet was questioned by the other participants, because he seemed so happy and carefree. Forty years later, as he was dying, he revealed the reason for his presence - he was so incapable of sharing the emotions of another human being that even hearing the annual recital of woes had left him untouched. His lack of any understanding of humanity left him with no hope of an afterlife, and a sense of himself as merely a shadow, lacking reality.

From Quiz Prisoners in Literature

Answer: Dr Alexandre Manette

Dr Manette's release, and his reunion with his daughter, sets off a chain of events leading to Carton's noble sacrifice at the guillotine.

From Quiz Left Behind

Answer: The Stand

"The Stand", King's fourth novel and one of his longest, is considered by many fans of his works to be a true classic. The novel starts with a Superflu nicknamed 'Captain Tripps' which wipes out the vast majority of the planet. Survivors manage to unite in Colorado and the remainder of the book turns out to follow a massive battle between the forces of good and evil (the latter personified in a figure named Randall Flagg, who returns in King's "Dark Tower" series).

From Quiz Revenge

Answer: Titus Andronicus

Though quite a few of Shakespeare's major works boast a rather impressive body count, none of them reach the heights (or lows?) of "Titus Andronicus". Written between 1588 and 1593, this play is the Bard's first tragedy - in which he tried his hand at emulating the bloody revenge tragedies that had become extremely popular with theatre-going audiences in the late Elizabethan era. If "Hamlet" (written only a few years later), in spite of its plethora of violent deaths, is a literary masterpiece with a sophisticated philosophical subtext, "Titus Andronicus" may be viewed as the Elizabethan version of modern pulp fiction. Set in a vaguely defined 4th century AD, "Titus Andronicus" is not based on any actual historical characters or events. The over-the-top violence of the story caused the play to be consistently denigrated by critics for the best part of three centuries. The eponymous character, a victorious Roman general, finds himself embroiled in a terrifying cicle of revenge after his return from a military campaign with five prisoners - Tamora, queen of the Goths, her three sons, and her lover, the Moor Aaron. When Titus sacrifices Tamora's eldest son to avenge the death of 21 of his sons during the war, the bodies start dropping - reaching the staggering count of 14 before the end of the play. This orgy of blood includes rape, mutilation, madness, and cannibalism - most of which happen on stage, in the tradition of Seneca's tragedies, the most influential source of inspiration for authors of revenge dramas. Other notable examples of revenge tragedies are Thomas Kyd's "The Spanish Tragedy" (c. 1587), Christopher Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta" (1592), Cyril Tourneur's "The Atheist's Tragedy" (1611), and John Webster's "The White Devil" (1612) and "The Duchess of Malfi" (c. 1613).

From Quiz Not Having a Merry Christmas

Answer: The bride and groom first met at the party

You might think that the connection was due to nostalgic recall of a happy event five years earlier, but that was far from the case. The bride was the beautiful daughter of a wealthy businessman, who threw the party to impress his colleagues, and hoped to establish links with high society. One of the honoured guests was Julian Mastakovich, clearly a man of elegance, who was heard (by the narrator) speculating about how large the girl's dowry would be if properly invested for the five years that would need to pass before she could be married. The fact that she was beautiful was a nice bonus, and we could see him establishing his claims with the family. The girl, however, was less than impressed, especially as she saw how badly he treated the governess's son, a friend of hers, because of his lower social status. Seen in hindsight, the party was full of poor omens for the unfortunate lass.

From Quiz Prisoners in Literature

Answer: Papillon

Although Charriere maintained throughout his life that everything in the book is true, many scholars have identified errors, incongruities, anomalies and contradictions in the narrative which lead to the book now being generally regarded as a narrative novel.

From Quiz Left Behind

Answer: Borne

Hitting shelves in 2017, "Borne" featured many concerns with the future explored in Vandermeer's "Southern Reach" trilogy, but from a much more personal point of view. In "Borne", a woman named Rachel plucks a weird creature from the side of Mord, a colossal bear, and it turns out to have a mind of its own. She lets it live with her and learn from her mannerisms and determines that it may not have been her best decision.

From Quiz Crazy

Answer: Jane Eyre

"Wide Sargasso Sea" is the best-known work by British novelist Jean Rhys, who was born in the Caribbean island of Dominica. The novel is a prequel to Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" (1847), partly told from the point of view of Antoinette Cosway, Bronte's novel's Bertha Mason, the violently insane first wife of Mr Rochester. Antoinette, a Creole heiress, is forced to leave her island home when she enters into an arranged marriage with an English gentleman (Mr Rochester), who believes her to be tainted by the streak of mental illness running in her family. The marriage soon disintegrates, and Antoinette descends into madness, eventually taking her own life. The novel touches upon themes of racial inequality, displacement and cultural shock, as well as feminist issues (such as Antoinette's reaction to England's oppressive patriarchal society).

From Quiz Revenge

Answer: Victor Hugo

First performed in 1832, "Le roi s'amuse" (literally "The King Has Fun", though English translations bear different titles, such as "The King's Diversion") is one of Victor Hugo's early plays, written when he was not yet 30 years old. The play is based on a real historical character, Nicolas Ferrial (known as Triboulet), who was court jester for French kings Louis XII and Francis I in the 16th century. "Le roi s'amuse" was banned for over 50 years after its premiere because of alleged disparaging references to King Louis-Philippe. In the play, the deformed Triboulet aids and abets his king Francis I - a notorious womanizer - in his conquests. Because of this he is cursed by a nobleman whose daughter has been seduced by the king. When Triboulet's own daughter, Blanche - whom he has tried in vain to keep hidden - is targeted by the king, the jester plans to avenge himself on his sovereign by having him murdered by a hired killer. Unfortunately, his plan backfires when Blanche sacrifices herself to save the king's life. Giuseppe Verdi's opera (1851) closely follows the plot of Hugo's play, though both the setting and the names are changed: Triboulet becomes Rigoletto, the king is the Duke of Mantua, and the ill-fated Blanche is named Gilda. The aria in which Rigoletto vows revenge against the Duke ("Sì! Vendetta, tremenda vendetta!") is one of the opera's most famous. Victor Hugo's works have inspired over 1,000 musical compositions. Besides "Rigoletto", the best-known of them are the musical theatre adaptations of "Les Misérables" (1980) and "Notre-Dame de Paris" ("The Hunchback of Notre-Dame", 1998).

From Quiz Prisoners in Literature

Answer: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Solzhenitsyn's novel, published in 1962, tells the harrowing tale of Ivan Denisovich Shukov's daily life in a Siberian gulag, having been sentenced although innocent. The book's publication was an remarkable event in Soviet literary history since such an account of Stalinist repression had never been published before.

From Quiz Left Behind

Answer: Station Eleven

The book briefly looks at the early days of the 'Georgia Flu' pandemic, but soon moves into the lives of some of the survivors of the event who, traveling around performing Shakespeare's classics, try to survive twenty years past the point. As the main characters recall what brought them to that point, they try to look forward at the potential of a future. Despite author Mandel's insistence that her book was not a science fiction novel, it won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2015.

From Quiz Crazy

Answer: Denethor

Denethor, Steward of Gondor, is the father of Boromir and Faramir. Weakened by the loss of his eldest son, he must face the siege of his city, Minas Tirith, by the armies of the Dark Lord Sauron. When Faramir is brought back from the battlefield, seriously wounded and seemingly close to death, Denethor loses his mind for good, and orders his servants to prepare a funeral pyre, on which he intends to burn his son along with himself. Though Faramir narrowly escapes death thanks to the intervention of the hobbit Pippin (who immediately summons Gandalf), Denethor jumps on to the pyre, and succumbs to the flames.

From Quiz Work It Out!

Answer: Moby Dick

In Herman Melville's 1851 novel "Moby-Dick", Captain Ahab and Ishmael were sailing on their ship, the Pequod, to pursue the villainous white sperm whale Moby Dick. Captain Ahab's boat had earlier been destroyed, and his leg was bitten off, by the whale. Captain Ahab was hunting down Moby Dick to seek revenge.

From Quiz Not Having a Merry Christmas

Answer: Santa shook a large rattle at him, and laughed when he was frightened.

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is probably most familiar from his poetry, especially his work in developing the form of jazz poetry. However, he wrote in a wide range of genres, including the 1934 story cycle 'The Ways of White Folks'. A story cycle is a collection of stories which each stand on their own, but which taken together form a larger novel-like whole, rather like a series of still shots taken from a movie, conveying the overall original, but leaving the reader/viewer to fill in the connecting bits. The stories are generally pessimistic in the way they convey relations between white and black members of society. 'One Christmas Eve' starts with Arcie having to stay late at work because the people who employ her are late coming home, and she gets increasingly worried about having time to do her Christmas shopping once they do return and pay her. Because the family had spent too much on themselves, and were short of cash, she didn't get her full pay, so had even less to spend than she had expected. Because her landlady also had shopping to do, she took Joe with her, and left him to wait while she purchased presents. Bored, Joe wandered back to the well-lit movie theatre they had passed earlier, but which his mother had explained they were not allowed to enter. Lured in by the gift-giving Santa in the lobby, Joe went in anyway, and worked his way to the front of the crowd, hoping to be given a sweet treat. Instead, the Santa picked up a large rattle and shook it threateningly in Joe's face, laughing as he did so. Joe ran out into the street, where Arcie eventually found him, in tears, and reinforced the sad lesson in racism he has just experienced. "'Huh! That wasn't no Santa Claus,' Arcie explained. 'If it was, he wouldn't a-treated you like that. That's a theatre for white folks-I told you once-and he's just a old white man.' 'Oh..., said little Joe."

From Quiz Prisoners in Literature

Answer: The Great Escape

Although "The Great Escape" did happen, and 81 prisoners fled, the book and particularly the film, fictionalises much. Very few Americans were held at Stalag Luft III. As in the dramatised version, Bushell (Bartlett in the stories), along with 49 other recaptured escapees, was murdered by express order of Hitler.

From Quiz Crazy

Answer: The Brothers Karamazov

Written in 1879-80, "The Brothers Karamazov" is Fyodor Dostoevsky's final novel, a deeply philosophical work that explores issues such as the existence of God, morality and free will. Ivan, the second of the titular brothers, hides a sensitive soul behind his atheism and cold rationalism. The contrast between the two aspects of his nature causes his mental collapse, which culminates with his delirium in the courtroom during his testimony on behalf of his older brother Dmitri, accused of having killed their father. In the throes of a brain fever, he is taken home by Katerina, Dmitri's former fiancée, who is in love with him, but his fate at the end of the novel remains undisclosed. Out of the remaining three choices, "Crime and Punishment" was also written by Dostoevsky, while "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" are by Leo Tolstoy.

From Quiz Work It Out!

Answer: Claudius

"The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" was a tragedy written by William Shakespeare in the early 17th century. The plot centered around Prince Hamlet of Denmark wanting revenge on the man who murdered his father, King Hamlet. Before he died of poisoning, Prince Hamlet killed his uncle Claudius with a sword and a cup of poisoned liquid.

From Quiz Not Having a Merry Christmas

Answer: He was drunk on the job.

This story was first published in 'The New Yorker' on Christmas Eve in 1949, and was included in the 1978 collection 'The Stories of John Cheever', which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Charlie started the day feeling sorry for himself, as practically the only person in the world who had to get up early and work on Christmas Day. He shared that feeling with the various tenants who used the elevator during the morning, repeatedly telling them that he wouldn't get Christmas dinner because he had to run the elevator. They all felt sorry for him, and he ended up with 14 dinners, each accompanied by an alcoholic drink and followed by dessert. This resulted in an intoxicated display that terrified a passenger, and led to his dismissal. It also caused Charlie to feel less sorry for himself, and a bit guilty for having taken advantage of the residents, who had all given him a present, the best they could manage on short notice. He was especially guilty about the toys he received from the people to whom he had said he had children, and decided to give them to his landlady's children. This left him feeling virtuous, but he didn't realise that they had already received so many gifts that they didn't know what to do with the latest batch. Then his landlady thought of a needy family she knew, and set off to regift the toys, hurrying to get there because 'she knew that we are bound, one to another, in licentious benevolence for only a single day, and that day was nearly over.'

From Quiz Left Behind

Answer: I Am Legend

'I Am Legend" seemed to transcend its own time since it was repeatedly adapted after its release in 1954 as Matheson's first novel. Following a man named Robert Neville, the sole survivor of a deadly vampire pandemic due to an immunity, it tracks his mental state as he hypothesizes a cure. Things appear to change when Neville finds another person in the city with him, but not all is as it seems. Perhaps the most famous adaptation featured Will Smith and showed up in theatres in 2007.

From Quiz Revenge

Answer: Wuthering Heights

In spite of its reputation as a "romantic" novel, Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" (1847) is at its heart a quintessential tale of revenge. Not surprisingly, it proved quite controversial at the time of publishing, due to the challenges to the Victorian morality posed by its stark depiction of domestic abuse and other kinds of physical and mental cruelty. Its central character, the mysterious foundling Heathcliff, has often been labelled as the ultimate Byronic hero, dominated by destructive passions and single-mindedly bent on revenge on those who disparaged and humiliated him. Set on the bleak, windswept Yorkshire moors, the novel also features elements of the popular Victorian genre of the ghost story, and is told mostly in flashbacks held together by a frame story. Adopted by the charitable Mr Earnshaw, Heathcliff is mercilessly bullied by the latter's son, Hindley, while growing close to Hindley's sister, Catherine. The pair's thwarted love affair brings about a string of disasters, including Catherine's death in childbirth and Heathcliff's ill-fated marriage to Isabella, the sister of Edgar Linton, Catherine's husband. After nearly causing the ruin of the Earnshaw and Linton families, Heathcliff - unhinged by anger and hatred, and haunted by Catherine's ghost - lets himself die, leaving Catherine's daughter and Hindley's son to build a life together from the ashes of the past. In "Jane Eyre" (1847), written by Emily's sister, Charlotte Brontë, the element of revenge is also present - though not as prominently as in "Wuthering Heights" - especially in the character of Mr Rochester's imprisoned wife, who kills herself while trying to avenge herself on the husband who kept her locked away for years.

From Quiz "'He cometh not,' she said"

Answer: The Vicar of Wakefield

"The Vicar of Wakefield" is the book, written by Oliver Goldsmith and published in 1766. The vicar of the title, Dr Primrose, has to endure many tribulations during the book, mostly relating to his troublesome family. Olivia Primrose is left penniless and shamed, after she realises that the phony wedding was simply a trick, and the neighbour apparently spends his time seducing girls. Her father rescues her and takes her back into the family, although she feels she has brought deep shame on them and can never hold up her head again. But the twists of the plot lead to the discovery that the false wedding was actually, unknown to the groom, a real one, and he and Olivia are married, whether he likes it or not. The various incredible elements of the plot were recognised even in Goldsmith's time as outrageous. Sir Walter Scott, writing in 1821, remarks that some of the characters are "extravagantly unnatural" and regrets that Goldsmith did not take the time to revise the story and remove "certain improbabilities, or rather impossibilities". However, he goes on to say that "'The Vicar of Wakefield' is one of the most delicious morsels of fictitious composition on which the human mind was ever employed." "Manon Lescaut" (1749) by Abbé Prévost, "Moll Flanders" (1722) by Daniel Defoe, and "Tom Jones" (1749) by Henry Fielding are all examples of the picaresque novel of the eighteenth century, which was an early stage in the development of fiction. Typical devices of the plot include a hero who encounters a new adventure in each chapter, frequent reversals of fortune, coincidences, scheming and deceit and, often, low-life characters. (The word picaresque, I only found out recently, comes from the Spanish word pícaro" meaning a vagabond or rascal.)

From Quiz Prisoners in Literature

Answer: John Coffey

Originally published in six short "chapbooks", Stephen King's novel depicts life on Death Row in the 1930's. Like many of King's books, it was successfully filmed, starring Tom Hanks and the late Michael Clarke Duncan.

From Quiz Left Behind

Answer: Oryx and Crake

Snowman is an interesting character since his role in the book seems to run parallel to the title characters, nicknamed Oryx and Crake, and while he doesn't seem to have their smarts, he outlasts many as genetically-engineered creatures and deliberately-spread diseases (hidden in BlyssPluss pills) take over as dominant life-forms on Earth. "Oryx and Crake" was followed by "The Year of the Flood" and "MaddAddam" in Atwood's trilogy.

From Quiz Crazy

Answer: The Bell Jar

Known for her powerful confessional poetry, Sylvia Plath suffered from major depression for most of her life. Published in January 1963 (about one month before Plath committed suicide) under the pseudonym of Victoria Lucas, "The Bell Jar" is a semi-autobiographical novel. The protagonist, named Esther Greenwood, compares depression with being trapped under a bell jar, unable to breathe. After being hospitalised following a suicide attempt, she finds relief from her condition through electroconvulsive therapy and the support of a female psychiatrist, Dr. Nolan. The remaining three options are all famous novels published in the '50s, a few years before "The Bell Jar": "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding, and "The Tin Drum" by Günter Grass.

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