Margaret Fuller Slack Practice Quiz — Spoon River Anthology
by Edgar Lee Masters — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Margaret Fuller Slack
Who does Margaret Fuller Slack compare herself to?
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), one of the greatest English novelists — though her only evidence of comparable talent is a photograph of her "deep-set eyes."
Who is Margaret Fuller Slack named after?
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850), the pioneering American feminist and literary critic who wrote Woman in the Nineteenth Century.
What did John Slack promise Margaret?
Leisure to write her novel — but instead she had eight children and never wrote a word.
How did Margaret die?
Lockjaw from a needle prick while washing baby clothes — a death she herself calls "ironical."
What is Margaret's bitter final line?
"Sex is the curse of life" — blaming sexuality and gender for trapping her in motherhood and domestic labor.
What "old, old problem" does Margaret describe?
"Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity?" — the limited options available to women who wanted both artistic careers and personal lives.
What is ironic about Margaret's death?
She was killed by domestic labor (washing baby clothes) — the mundane task that symbolized everything that prevented her from writing.
Does Masters portray Margaret sympathetically?
Ambiguously — she could be a genuine casualty of patriarchy or a self-deluding mediocrity. The poem refuses to resolve which, making the reader decide.
What is the "old, old problem" really about?
The impossible choice 19th-century women faced between creative ambition and the social/biological demands of womanhood.