Any Study of Autobiographical Narratives that Appeared Under the Ostensible Authorship of African American Writers

Reading Passage Question

Any study of autobiographical narratives that appeared under the ostensible authorship of African American writers between 1760 and 1865 inevitably raises concerns about authenticity and interpretation. Should an autobiography whose written composition was literally out of the hands of its narrator be considered as the literary equivalent of those autobiographies that were authored independently by their subjects?

In many cases, the so-called edited narrative of an ex-slave ought to be treated as a ghostwritten account insofar as literary analysis is concerned, especially when it was composed by its editor from “a statement of facts” provided by an African American subject. Blassingame has taken pains to show that the editors of several of the more famous antebellum slave narratives were “noted for their integrity” and thus were unlikely to distort the facts given them by slave narrators. From a literary standpoint, however, it is not the moral integrity of these editors that is at issue but the linguistic, structural, and tonal integrity of the narratives they produced. Even if an editor faithfully reproduced the facts of a narrator’s life, it was still the editor who decided what to make of these facts, how they should be emphasized, in what order they ought to be presented, and what was extraneous or germane. Readers of African American autobiography then and now have too readily accepted the presumption of these eighteenth- and nineteenth-century editors that experiential facts recounted orally could be recorded and sorted by an amanuensis-editor, taken out of their original contexts, and then published with editorial prefaces, footnotes, and appended commentary, all without compromising the validity of the narrative as a product of an African American consciousness.

Transcribed narratives in which an editor explicitly delimits his or her role undoubtedly may be regarded as more authentic and reflective of the narrator’s thought in action than those edited works that flesh out a statement of facts in ways unaccounted for. Still, it would be naive to accord dictated oral narratives the same status as autobiographies composed and written by the subjects of the stories themselves. This point is illustrated by an analysis of Works Progress Administration interviews with ex-slaves in the 1930s that suggests that narrators often told interviewers what they seemed to want to hear. If it seemed impolitic for former slaves to tell all they knew and thought about the past to interviewers in the 1930s, the same could be said of escaped slaves on the run in the antebellum era. Dictated narratives, therefore, are literary texts whose authenticity is difficult to determine. Analysts should reserve close analytic readings for independently authored texts. Discussion of collaborative texts should take into account the conditions that governed their production.

“Any study of autobiographical narratives that appeared under the ostensible authorship of African American writers”- is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 7 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

Question1
Which one of the following best summarizes the main point of the passage?

(A) The personal integrity of an autobiography’s editor has little relevance to its value as a literary work.
(B) Autobiographies dictated to editors are less valuable as literature than are autobiographies authored by their subjects.
(C) The facts that are recorded in an autobiography are less important than the personal impressions of its author.
(D) The circumstances under which an autobiography was written should affect the way it is interpreted as literature.
(E) The autobiographies of African Americans written between 1760 and 1865 deserve more careful study than they have so far received.

Question 2
The information in the passage suggests that the role of the “editor” (Highlighted) is most like that of

(A) an artist who wishes to invent a unique method of conveying the emotional impact of a scene in a painting
(B) a worker who must interpret the instructions of an employer
(C) a critic who must provide evidence to support opinions about a play being reviewed
(D) an architect who must make the best use of a natural setting in designing a public building
(E) a historian who must decide how to direct the reenactment of a historical event

Question 3
Which one of the following best describes the author’s opinion about applying literary analysis to edited autobiographies?

(A) The author is adamantly opposed to the application of literary analysis to edited autobiographies.
(B) The author is skeptical of the value of close analytical reading in the case of edited autobiographies.
(C) The author believes that literary analysis of the prefaces, footnotes, and commentaries that accompany edited autobiographies would be more useful than an analysis of the text of the autobiographies.
(D) The author believes that an exclusively literary analysis of edited autobiographies is more valuable than a reading that emphasizes their historical import.
(E) The author believes that the literary analysis of edited autobiographies would enhance their linguistic, structural, and tonal integrity.

Question 4
The passage supports which one of the following statements about the readers of autobiographies of African Americans that were published between 1760 and 1865?

(A) They were more concerned with the personal details in the autobiographies than with their historical significance.
(B) They were unable to distinguish between ghostwritten and edited autobiographies.
(C) They were less naive about the facts of slave life than are readers today.
(D) They presumed that the editing of the autobiographies did not affect their authenticity.
(E) They had little interest in the moral integrity of the editors of the autobiographies.

Question 5
Which one of the following words, as it is used in the passage, best serves to underscore the author’s concerns about the authenticity of the autobiographies discussed?

(A) “ostensible” (line 2)
(B) “integrity” (line 14)
(C) “extraneous” (line 21)
(D) “delimits” (line 30)
(E) “impolitic” (line 39)

Question 6
According to the passage, close analytic reading of an autobiography is appropriate only when the

(A) autobiography has been dictated to an experienced amanuensis-editor
(B) autobiography attempts to reflect the narrator’s thought in action
(C) autobiography was authored independently by its subject
(D) moral integrity of the autobiography’s editor is well established
(E) editor of the autobiography collaborated closely with its subject in its editing

Question 7
It can be inferred that the discussion in the passage of Blassingame’s work primarily serves which one of the following purposes?

(A) It adds an authority’s endorsement to the author’s view that edited narratives ought to be treated as ghostwritten accounts.
(B) It provides an example of a mistaken emphasis in the study of autobiography.
(C) It presents an account of a new method of literary analysis to be applied to autobiography.
(D) It illustrates the inadequacy of traditional approaches to the analysis of autobiography.
(E) It emphasizes the importance of the relationship between editor and narrator.

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