AP English Literature · Figurative language
The catalogue of fruit in lines 1-4 primarily serves to
Claude McKay, “The Tropics in New York” (1922)
1Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,
2 Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
3And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
4 Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,
5Set in the window, bringing memories
6 Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
7And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies
8 In benediction over nun-like hills.
9My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze;
10 A wave of longing through my body swept,
11And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
12 I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
Claude McKay, “The Tropics in New York,” from <em>Harlem Shadows</em> (1922). Public-domain text.
The catalogue of fruit in lines 1-4 primarily serves to
Answer and explanation
Answer: A: make the objects sensuously immediate before they become triggers for an absent landscape
The poem opens with a catalogue of bananas, cocoa, mangoes, and other fruit, so the display is vivid and sensory before it triggers memory of an absent landscape in the next stanza. That is choice A, and it explains the order of the imagery. Choice B is tempting because the display looks abundant, but the poem never calls the speaker's present life rich or the remembered home poor. Choice C reads the display as artificial and excessive, though the speaker responds with longing. Choice D gives the speaker expertise in judging produce, which nothing in the poem establishes.
More Figurative language questions
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