Words in Their Mouths Trivia Quiz

Answer: Fitzwilliam Darcy

The reference to Pemberley, Mr. Darcy's estate, should be a dead give away. These words actually come from a piece of "Pride and Prejudice" fanfiction I wrote, involving an exchange of letters between Darcy and his wife Elizabeth. Jane Austen's novels have inspired many such works of fanfiction.

Answer: Edward Rochester

This one is admittedly tongue-in-cheek. As much as I love Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre," Mr. Rochester's metaphors seem a bit melodramatic when spoken aloud. I've just had some fun with this one: "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you-especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame."

Answer: Ishmael

Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" begins, "Call me Ishmael." Ishmael is the narrator of the novel, a former schoolmaster turned sailor who will prove the lone survivor of a momentous quest.

Answer: Romeo

This is my parody of Romeo's oxymoronical swooning in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," where he says: "O heavy lightness, serious vanity, / Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, / Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, / Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! / This love I feel, that feel no love in this."

Answer: Ivan Karamazov

Captain Ahab certainly questions God's justice, but these invented words would better fit into the mouth of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov, who expressed, in a discussion with his brother Alyosha, that he wished to decline God's ticket to heaven, not because he did not believe in God, but because he did not wish to see the divine reconciliation, which he felt could prove no adequate recompense for suffering.

Answer: Hamlet

Hamlet says this much more poetically in Shakespeare's play: "To be, or not to be: that is the question." Hamlet is, at this moment, contemplating suicide.

Answer: CAULFIELD

J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield ("The Catcher in the Rye") considered the world around him to be full of phonies.

Answer: Shylock

This is a sort of expansion of Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech in William Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice": "Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

Answer: Heathcliff

The rhyme is partly modeled on "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater" and partly on a saying of the Scarlet Pimpernel's, but the words fit the story of only one man: Heathcliff. Of course it is silly to put nursery rhyme-like words into the mouth of this brooding character, but you can guess from the context that Heathcliff is the man in question.

When Catherine dies in Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights," Heathcliff actually says, "May she wake in torment . . . Where is she? Not there -- not in heaven -- not perished -- where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer -- I repeat it till my tongue stiffens -- Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! You said I killed you -- haunt me then!"

Answer: Elizabeth Darcy

This is another excerpt from a piece of my "Pride and Prejudice" fanfiction. You could infer the character from the fact that the speaker refers to her "brother Bingley." Charles Bingley would be Elizabeth Darcy's brother-in-law by the end of the book. Therefore, Elizabeth could not have written this letter as Elizabeth Bennet.