The Piazza Tales Quizzes

Think you’ve got your head wrapped around The Piazza Tales? Put your knowledge to the test. Good luck — the Stickman is counting on you!
Q. Why does the narrator in "Bartleby" say you should love one another?


Charity will get you into heaven.
Charity is as much fun as riding turtles.
Charity protects you from doing something violent which might get you in trouble.
Charity is hard, and difficult things are morally good.
Q. In "The Piazza," what suggests the narrator is lonely or isolated?


He is on a desert island with only penguins for company.
He prefers not to do anything.
He thinks of, and possibly dreams up, Marianna, who is defined by loneliness.
He sews all day in his house and waits for his brother to come home.
Q. Babo's deceit is successful because


he was a famous stage actor in Paris.
Don Benito is an incredible performer and never gives any indication that anything is wrong.
Captain Delano is incredibly sleepy and spends most of the time on ship unconscious in Don Benito's cabin.
Delano is racist and can't believe that black people could successfully plot against white people.
Q. In what way might Bartleby be considered a stand-in for Melville?


Melville refused to run errands for his wife.
Melville worked as a copyist his whole life and never went to sea.
Melville's real name was "Bartleby."
Melville and Bartleby both write for a living, and both were not very successful.
Q. "Benito Cereno" can be seen as a racist story if you believe Melville intended


Babo to be the villain of the story.
Captain Delano to be the villain of the story.
no one to be the villain of the story.
to make the story so long nobody would finish it.