Fiction and Short Stories – Tricky Q&A (Set 1)

Q: Which novel famously begins with the line, "Call me Ishmael"?

A: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.
Q: In which short story does a character sell her hair to buy a gift, only to find her gift is useless?
A: The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry.
Q: Which modernist short story features a woman hearing about her husband's death, only to die upon his return?
A: The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin.
Q: Who created the fictional region Yoknapatawpha County?
A: William Faulkner.
Q: What is the real name of George Orwell, author of 1984 and Animal Farm?
A: Eric Arthur Blair.
Q: Which 20th-century short story ends with the shocking line, "And then the screaming began."?
A: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
Q: In which novel does the character Gregor Samsa transform into an insect?
A: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.
Q: What famous postmodern novel begins with a 40-page bibliography?
A: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.
Q: Which author popularized the twist ending in the short story format?
A: O. Henry.
Q: In which novel is the entire narrative a single sentence?
A: The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker.
Q: Which writer of short fiction was also a Nobel laureate in 2013?
A: Alice Munro.
Q: What is metafiction, and which short story famously uses it?
A: Fiction that self-references its fictional nature; Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth.
Q: Which novel’s protagonist is named after the author but isn’t autobiographical?
A: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.
Q: Which dystopian short story features characters punished for being “above average”?
A: Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.
Q: In which novel does a character remain unnamed yet is central to the narrative, famously starting with "Last night I dreamt I
went to Manderley again"?
A: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.
16. Which author is famous for stream-of-consciousness in fiction and wrote "To the Lighthouse"?
Ans: Virginia Woolf.

17. What novel begins and ends with a funeral?

Ans: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.

18. Which short story by Poe involves a man being buried alive?
Ans: The Premature Burial.

19. Which story features a mechanical house continuing its routine after humanity’s extinction?
Ans: There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury.

20. What is the real name of Mark Twain?

Ans: Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

21. Which story ends with the narrator revealing they have been dead the whole time?
Ans: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce.
22. Who wrote the shortest horror story: “The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.”?
Ans: Fredric Brown.

23. Which novel opens with a character being expelled from college and ends with his descent into invisibility?
Ans: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

24. Which author is known for magical realism and wrote "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"?
Ans: Gabriel García Márquez.

25. Which writer coined the phrase “Iceberg Theory” of writing?

Ans: Ernest Hemingway.

26. Which famous detective short story first introduced Sherlock Holmes?
Ans: A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle.

27. Which novel’s title is derived from a line in Ecclesiastes: “To everything there is a season”?
Ans: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (trick: not the answer; real one is The Grapes of Wrath).

28. Who is the author of the metafictional novel “If on a winter's night a traveler”?
Ans: Italo Calvino.

29. Which short story features a character whose pride in a scarlet-colored item leads to tragedy?
Ans: The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst.

30. In which dystopian novel are books burned by “firemen”?

Ans: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

31. Which novella is set on the Congo River and deals with European imperialism?
Ans: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

32. What fictional detective solves mysteries using logic and psychology, featured in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”?
Ans: C. Auguste Dupin.

33. Which short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne critiques Puritan hypocrisy and features a man walking into the woods?
Ans: Young Goodman Brown.

34. Which story by Katherine Mansfield portrays class differences via a simple garden party?
Ans: The Garden Party.

35. Who wrote “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” a critique of materialism and modern anxiety?
Ans: D.H. Lawrence.

36. Which short story features a character who wants to be “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”?
Ans: Richard Wright.

37. Which novel by Kazuo Ishiguro features a butler recalling his life in postwar England?
Ans: The Remains of the Day.

38. Which author wrote absurdist stories including “The Nose” and “The Overcoat”?
Ans: Nikolai Gogol.
39. In which short story does a boy fantasize about giving money to a girl, only to face disappointment at a bazaar?
Ans: Araby by James Joyce.

40. Which short story by Jhumpa Lahiri explores Indian-American identity through food and memory?
Ans: When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine.

41. Which author’s collection "Interpreter of Maladies" won the Pulitzer Prize?
Ans: Jhumpa Lahiri.

42. Which dystopian story ends with a young boy being shot for stepping out of line?
Ans: Examination Day by Henry Slesar.

43. Which story by Saki features a fake tragedy told by a mischievous girl?
Ans: The Open Window.

44. What color dress does the protagonist wear in Kate Chopin’s "The Awakening" during her final swim?
Ans: None; she is naked, symbolizing rebirth/freedom.

45. Which novel is written entirely in letters (an epistolary form) between two sisters?
Ans: The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

46. What is the name of the imaginary country in Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children”?
Ans: There isn’t one; it's set in real India (trick question).

47. Who wrote the experimental novel “Pale Fire” which contains a fictional poem and commentary?
Ans: Vladimir Nabokov.

48. What genre best describes Borges’ “The Library of Babel”?

Ans: Philosophical fiction or speculative fiction.

49. Which American author is known for minimalist fiction and wrote “Cathedral”?
Ans: Raymond Carver.

50. Which short story contains a lottery that results in ritualistic human sacrifice?
Ans: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.

51. Which novel contains the fictional diary of a governess slowly descending into madness?
Ans: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

52. Which character in a Hemingway story says: “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
Ans: Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises.

53. In which novel does a fire destroy all the books in a character’s home?
Ans: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

54. What literary device is most prominent in Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”?
Ans: Unreliable narration / time distortion.

55. Which novel’s title is a quote from Hamlet: “What dreams may come”?
Ans: What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson.

56. Which short story features a man who lives multiple lives through dreams?
Ans: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber.

57. Which author’s stories are marked by “dirty realism” and bleak romanticism?
Ans: Charles Bukowski.

58. Who wrote the metafictional novel “Slaughterhouse-Five”?

Ans: Kurt Vonnegut.

59. In which novel is the protagonist named Bigger Thomas?

Ans: Native Son by Richard Wright.

60. Which short story by Roald Dahl involves a woman murdering her husband with a leg of lamb?
Ans: Lamb to the Slaughter.

61. In which novel do all animals become equal, but some “more equal than others”?
Ans: Animal Farm by George Orwell.

62. Which short story shows a father and son at odds over the importance of a clean house?
Ans: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (trick: not father/son, actually about two waiters; trick question).

63. Who wrote “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” featuring the famous line “I would prefer not to”?
Ans: Herman Melville.

64. What short story inspired the film “Arrival” and explores time as non-linear?
Ans: Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang.

65. What’s unusual about the narration in “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning?
Ans: It’s a dramatic monologue (poetic fiction technique).

66. Which short story ends with a man jumping in front of a train after writing a suicide note?
Ans: A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka (trick; that’s Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky).

67. Who wrote “Everything That Rises Must Converge”?

Ans: Flannery O'Connor.

68. Which short story features a violent act against a family by escaped prisoners?
Ans: A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor.

69. Which novella features a man haunted by visions of a ghostly ship and a double?
Ans: The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad.

70. Which 21st-century novel features a protagonist with Asperger's Syndrome solving a dog’s murder?
Ans: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

71. Which short story shows the dangers of blind tradition?

Ans: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
72. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” what does the narrator see behind the wallpaper?
Ans: A woman trapped inside it.

73. Who wrote “Girl,” a story made entirely of a mother’s monologue?

Ans: Jamaica Kincaid.

74. What modern novel uses footnotes as part of its story structure?
Ans: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.

75. Which author wrote the semi-autobiographical “Black Boy”?

Ans: Richard Wright.

76. Which story begins: “It was a pleasure to burn”?

Ans: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

77. Who wrote “Sonny’s Blues,” a story about jazz and family in Harlem?
Ans: James Baldwin.

78. Which short story features a grandmother who manipulates her family into a deadly trip?
Ans: A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor.

79. Who is the unreliable narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”?
Ans: The unnamed murderer.

80. Which book features a character writing a novel called “Timequake”?

Ans: Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut.

81. Which short story features a woman baking a cake that makes her invisible?
Ans: The Third and Final Continent (trick question: no invisibility; trick element added).

82. Which story explores the fallout of the atomic bomb in a Japanese village?
Ans: Hiroshima by John Hersey (non-fiction narrative but uses fiction techniques).

83. Which author created the fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio?

Ans: Sherwood Anderson.

84. Which postcolonial novel features a character named Saleem Sinai?

Ans: Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie.

85. What’s the main theme of Chekhov’s “The Bet”?

Ans: Value of life and knowledge vs material wealth.

86. What technique is heavily used in Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury”?
Ans: Stream of consciousness.

87. What color is the wallpaper in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s famous story?
Ans: Yellow.

88. Which story is set in a future where death is optional and time is currency?
Ans: Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison.
89. What is the main symbol in “The Rocking-Horse Winner”?
Ans: The rocking horse – symbol of desperation and fate.

90. Which sci-fi writer focused on philosophical dilemmas in short stories like “I, Robot”?
Ans: Isaac Asimov.

91. What novel features a protagonist with 24 alternate personalities?

Ans: Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber.

92. Which story ends with the character realizing he’s been manipulated by fate?
Ans: The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs.

93. What’s the term for a story within a story, like in “The Arabian Nights”?
Ans: Frame narrative.

94. Which story involves a lottery but is not The Lottery?

Ans: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin (moral sacrifice lottery).

95. Which author’s short stories often involve Irish epiphanies?

Ans: James Joyce.

96. Which work features a dinner party where a ghost is a guest?

Ans: The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde.

97. Who wrote “The Dead,” often called the greatest short story in English?
Ans: James Joyce.

98. What’s the genre of Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings”?

Ans: Postmodern metafiction.

99. Which American author used Southern Gothic themes in short stories?
Ans: Flannery O'Connor.

100. What do the initials in J.D. Salinger stand for?

Ans: Jerome David.