Dialogue Between Franklin and the Gout quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Which form best describes "Dialogue Between Franklin and the Gout"?

   • Correct answer: Comic dialogue
   • Tragic soliloquy
   • Dramatic monologue
   • Epistolary novel

   Right: the piece is a comic dialogue, a conversation between two speakers (Franklin and his personified Gout) played for laughs while it makes a serious point about health.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What does the Gout accuse Franklin of in its very first answer?

   • Refusing every medicine that his doctors have prescribed
   • Working at his desk so late that he hardly ever sleeps
   • Correct answer: Eating and drinking too freely and keeping his legs idle
   • Neglecting his work as a diplomat to go to Paris parties

   The Gout's first reply is the whole case in brief: "you have ate and drank too freely, and too much indulged those legs of yours in their indolence."

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3. 3

   Question 3. According to the Gout, what does Franklin eat for breakfast?

   • Porridge with honey, fresh fruit, and a glass of wine
   • Correct answer: Tea with cream, buttered toast, and slices of hung beef
   • Hot chocolate, white bread, and a dish of roast fowl
   • Coffee, boiled eggs, and a thick slice of smoked ham

   The Gout calls it an inordinate breakfast: "four dishes of tea, with cream, and one or two buttered toasts, with slices of hung beef." He eats this without having earned an appetite by exercise.

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4. 4

   Question 4. In the line "instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast, by salutary exercise", what does salutary mean?

   • Done alone, in solitude
   • Polite, like a salute
   • Harmful to the body
   • Correct answer: Good for one's health

   Salutary means healthful or beneficial. The Gout wants exercise that would do Franklin good before he eats. It is easily confused with solitary, and it only sounds like salute.

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5. 5

   Question 5. Why does the Gout call chess the least eligible recreation for a sedentary man?

   • It strains his weak eyes in the evening candlelight
   • Correct answer: Its rigid attention slows down his circulation
   • It leads to bitter quarrels with the friends he plays
   • It tempts him to gamble away money on every game

   The Gout says that instead of speeding up the fluids, "the rigid attention it requires helps to retard the circulation and obstruct internal secretions." Chess keeps him still for hours.

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6. 6

   Question 6. When Franklin says his carriage rides count as exercise, how does the Gout propose to measure exercise?

   • Correct answer: By the heat each kind of motion raises in the body
   • By the number of miles that each journey covers
   • By how weary the horses are at the end of the journey
   • By the hours spent breathing the open country air

   The Gout says that "By observing the degree of heat obtained by different kinds of motion, we may form an estimate of the quantity of exercise given by each." An hour's walk warms you all over; a day in a carriage leaves your feet cold.

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7. 7

   Question 7. In the line "leaves indolence, and its concomitant maladies, to be endured by her horses", what does concomitant mean?

   • Rare and unexpected
   • Cured or prevented by it
   • Correct answer: Coming along with it
   • Spread by contagion

   Concomitant means naturally accompanying. The illnesses come along with idleness, so the walking lady leaves both to her horses, who stand idle while she goes on foot.

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8. 8

   Question 8. What does the Gout praise about Franklin's fair friend at Auteuil?

   • She sends him herbal remedies for his gout
   • She keeps him to a strict and plain diet
   • She beats him at chess nearly every night
   • Correct answer: She always comes to visit him on foot

   "When she honors you with a visit, it is on foot." Yet Franklin must have his carriage to go to Auteuil, "though it is no farther from Passy to Auteuil than from Auteuil to Passy."

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9. 9

   Question 9. How many times does the Gout say Franklin broke his promise to take a morning walk?

   • Correct answer: 199
   • 10
   • 52
   • 365

   Franklin guesses about ten times a year; the Gout corrects him: "the gross amount is one hundred and ninety-nine times."

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10. 10

    Question 10. At the Brillons' on summer evenings, what does Franklin do instead of walking in the gardens?

    • Plays billiards indoors with the other guests
    • Reads the newspapers in M. Brillon's library
    • Correct answer: Sits on the terrace with tea and the chess-board
    • Naps in his carriage until it is time to leave

    The Gout says his choice is "to sit on the terrace, satisfy yourself with the fine prospect", and then he calls "for tea and the chess-board" and stays seated till nine o'clock.

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11. 11

    Question 11. Besides burning it, what does the Gout suggest Franklin do with his carriage?

    • Sell it and give the money to the village poor
    • Lend it to Madame Brillon for her daily visits
    • Keep it only for trips in cold or rainy weather
    • Correct answer: Have it carry worn-out peasants home as he walks

    The Gout tells him to have his coachman set down the old, bent peasants who "trudge a mile or two to their smoky huts." That helps his soul, and walking home from the Brillons' helps his body.

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12. 12

    Question 12. In the line "it is always very complaisant to itself, and sometimes to its friends", what does complaisant mean?

    • Smugly unaware
    • Correct answer: Eager to go easy on
    • Harsh and demanding
    • Quick to complain

    Complaisant means obliging and willing to please. The world goes easy on itself and its friends, so its praise of Franklin is no proof. Do not confuse it with complacent (smug) or with complaining.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What does the Gout mean when it calls philosophers sages in their maxims and fools in their conduct?

    • Philosophers behave well but write foolish maxims
    • Franklin's sayings about health are simply wrong
    • Only a fool would take advice from a philosopher
    • Correct answer: Franklin gives wise advice but does not follow it

    The jab comes right after Franklin quotes his own Poor Richard. He even has a maxim that a mile up and down stairs is as good as ten on level ground, yet he never once uses the Brillons' hundred steps.

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14. 14

    Question 14. Which literary device does Franklin rely on most to give his illness a voice?

    • Hyperbole
    • Onomatopoeia
    • Correct answer: Personification
    • Alliteration

    Personification gives human qualities to something not human. The Gout speaks, keeps a written list of offenses, calls itself a physician, and administers its twinges whenever Franklin complains.

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15. 15

    Question 15. Why does the Gout insist it is not Franklin's enemy but his physician and friend?

    • Correct answer: Its pain pushes him to correct his harmful habits
    • It enjoys his company on long, sleepless nights
    • It means to cure him for good and then leave him
    • It wants to protect his good name in Paris society

    The Gout says its corrections are "so much for your good" and that it has saved him from palsy, dropsy and apoplexy. Its pain is a remedy for idleness, which is why it says gout in such a man is "no disease, but a remedy."

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16. 16

    Question 16. The Gout says Franklin's promises will be forgotten like the forms of last year's clouds. What does this simile suggest?

    • His promises are lofty and inspire his friends
    • Correct answer: His resolutions are short-lived and soon fade
    • His bad habits will drift off and never return
    • His health will soon darken like a coming storm

    A cloud's shape lasts moments. The Gout predicts that "after a few months of good health, you will return to your old habits", so his vow to quit chess will vanish as completely.

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17. 17

    Question 17. How often did Franklin walk the Brillons' hundred steps?

    • Correct answer: Not once
    • Every visit
    • Twice
    • Ten times

    Asked how often he used the steps, Franklin cannot answer, so the Gout does it for him: "not once."

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18. 18

    Question 18. Which of these are said in the dialogue?

    • The Gout says that in bad weather Franklin ought to play billiards.

      Happened

      The Gout says he should walk or ride, "or, if the weather prevents that, play at billiards."

    • Franklin readily admits that he is a glutton and a tippler.

      Didn't happen

      He denies it: all the world that knows him "will allow that I am neither the one nor the other."

    • Franklin guesses he broke his walk promise ten times a year.

      Happened

      He says it happened occasionally, "probably ten times in a year." The Gout says 199.

    • The Gout reads its entire list of offenses aloud to Franklin.

      Didn't happen

      The Gout says "It is too long a detail; but I will briefly mention some particulars."

    • The Gout claims it saved Franklin from palsy, dropsy and apoplexy.

      Happened

      It asks, "Is it not I who, in the character of your physician, have saved you from the palsy, dropsy, and apoplexy?"

    • Franklin walks home from the Brillons' on summer evenings.

      Didn't happen

      Instead of walking home, the Gout says, "you step into your carriage."

    • Franklin says he has never paid any doctor to fight the Gout.

      Happened

      He says, "I never feed physician or quack of any kind, to enter the list against you" (feed here means pay a fee to).

    • The Gout stops its twinges when Franklin calls it tiresome.

      Didn't happen

      It says it will be silent and "continue my office; take that, and that", and the twinges go on.

    • The Gout suggests Franklin could burn his carriage for heat.

      Happened

      "Burn it if you choose; you would at least get heat out of it once in this way."

    • The Gout promises never to visit Franklin once he reforms.

      Didn't happen

      It leaves him "with an assurance of visiting you again at a proper time and place."

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