Question

6. Please refer to Story A1 and answer the following question. Which of the following words would best fit into the blank in the final sentence of the passage?

a. Scapegoat
b. Hero
c. Leader
d. Victim

Story A1
The fictional world of Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison's novel Sula—the African-American
section of Medallion, Ohio, a community called the Bottom—is a place where people and
natural things are apt to go awry, to break from their prescribed boundaries, a place where
bizarre and unnatural happenings and strange reversals of the ordinary are commonplace. The
very naming of the setting of Sula is a turning upside-down of the expected; the Bottom is
located high in the hills. The novel is filled with images of mutilation, both psychological and
physical. A great part of the lives of the characters, therefore, is taken up with making sense of
the world, setting boundaries, and devising methods to control what is essentially
uncontrollable. One of the major devices used by the people of the Bottom is the seemingly
universal one of creating a _____________; in this case, the title character Sula—upon which to
project both the evil they perceive outside themselves and the evil in their own hearts.

Answer 1

The word that would best fit into the blank is (a.) scapegoat.

The word 'scapegoat' refers to a person forced to bear the blame for others. In Toni Morrison's novel, Sula appears as a scapegoat for the decline of her community due to the fact that she behaves as a nonconformist. The people of the Bottom blame Sula for all the misfortunes that affect the community; therefore, she is made the town's scapegoat, which, at the same time, they believe that will help them to become a better community.