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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. What caused the bell-ringing automaton to kill Bannadonna?
2. To what did Captain Delano attribute the ship's being so long becalmed?
3. What rumor pursues Daniel Orme into his life on shore?
4. What first attracts the narrator of "The Piazza" to a building far in the mountains?
5. What does the narrator in "The Fiddler" do with his manuscripts?
Short Essay Questions
1. In "The Lightning Rod Man," why does the narrator pretend to mistake the salesman for the god Jupiter Tonans?
2. Why doesn't the narrator in "The Piazza" grant Marianna's wish and tell her that he is the resident of the house that she believes contains happiness?
3. What does the bug in the apple-tree table teach the narrator's daughter, Julia?
4. What does Jimmy Rose retain after he has lost his fortune?
5. Why do the peacocks on the wallpaper in the parlor seem to the narrator to represent Jimmy Rose?
6. Why does the owner of the paper factory in "The Tartarus of Maids" tell the narrator that all of his workers are called "girls"?
7. What does the landscape painter, B. Hobbema Brown, believe about the Marquis de Grandvin?
8. What haunts the narrator at the conclusion of "The Piazza"?
9. How have the Knights Templar changed, according to Melville's observations, in "The Paradise of Bachelors"?
10. What does the narrator of "The Fiddler" first admire about Hautboy?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Melville's work is full of allusions to mythic characters and settings with which he expects his reader to be familiar. Select a story such as "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo" or "The Two Temples" to find the references to mythology. Look up the characters or locations and explain in your essay how these references strengthen the story.
Essay Topic 2
Melville has a gift for inventing language: "The picturesque yields to the pocketesque." The government of the island was a "riotocracy." Find and analyze examples of invented language. Are the new words useful? Comprehensible? Effective? Discuss their effect on you as a reader.
Essay Topic 3
Melville was capable of a wide range of diction, or word choice, ranging from the staccato exclamations of "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo" to the alliterations of "The Encantadas," (an archipelago of aridities), to biblical allusions ("A virtue went out of him . . ." "I became a pillar of salt . . ."). Select one form of diction that impressed you about these stories, show examples of its use, and analyze its effectiveness.
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This section contains 886 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) |
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