Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. What was the name of Hamper's first supervisor?
2. What music did Hamper and his coworkers listen to at work?
3. Approximately how long was Hamper's father gone?
4. What year did Hamper begin working at GM?
5. What was the job Hamper first wanted to have?
Short Essay Questions
1. How does Hamper describe the Cab Shop the first time he goes there? What about the description is the most informative about the scene?
2. What pattern emerged in junior-high that led Hamper to consider the life of a shop-rat? How did he begin to identify with his family who had worked in the factory?
3. When did the GM assembly line begin to look like an attractive option to Hamper? How did this demonstrate a change in Hamper's thinking?
4. How did Hamper's marriage to Joanie end? Given his tone in the writing, what do you think his attitude was during this time?
5. Why is Hamper's description of Flint, Michigan, at the beginning of Chapter 2, a powerful one?
6. What role did Hamper's mother play in his life?
7. How did Hamper begin to construct his life after high school? How was he alone and yet not alone during this time?
8. Hamper ends Chapter 3 with the sentence, "The money was right, even if we weren't" (pg 43). What does this mean?
9. What promises did the Plant Manager make during the factory meeting? How did Hamper's retelling of the speech change its tone?
10. What stories does Hamper tell about Dan-O? What do these stories add to the reader's impression of the factory?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
How did Roy's crackup prefigure Hamper's own mental breakdown? What role did Hamper play on Roy's story, and how did Roy's compare to his own?
Essay Topic 2
There is very little, if any, symbolism in the book Rivethead. What is the effect of a literal story? How does this method fit the subject matter?
Essay Topic 3
What effect did unemployment have on Flint? What happened when much of the population was unemployed and why? What do you think the mood of the town was?
This section contains 1,722 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |