GRE Reading Comprehension
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Source: NO2
Extended debate concerning the exact point of origin of individual folktales told by Afro-American salves has unfortunately taken precedence over analysis of the tales meaning and function. Cultural continuities with Africa were not dependent on importation and perpetuation of specific folktales in their pristine form. It is in the place that tales occupied in the lives of the slaves and in the meaning slaves derived from them that the clearest resemblances to African tradition can be found. Afro-American slaves did not borrow tales indiscriminately from the Whites among whom they lives. Black people were most influenced by those Euro-American tales whose functional meaning and aesthetic appeal had the greatest similarity to the tales with deep roots in their ancestral homeland. Regardless of where slave tales came from, the essential point is that, with respect to language, delivery, details of characterization. and plot, slaves quickly made them their own.
The author claims that most studies of folktales told by Afro-American slaves are inadequate because the studies_____
- A fail to recognize any possible Euro-American influence on the folktales
- B do not pay enough attention to the features of a folktale that best reveal an African influence
- C overestimate the number of folktales brought from Africa by the slaves
- D do not consider the fact that a folktale can be changed as it is retold many times
- E oversimplify the diverse and complex traditions of the slaves ancestral homeland