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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. Who does Julia call to see if she can arrange to find Sarah?

2. When does this person at the nursing home meet Sarah?

3. Who is Richard Rainsferd?

4. How does the narrator characterize the trip to Paris?

5. How does Julia take this person's arrival at the nursing home?

Short Essay Questions

1. What point in the development of the plot does this moment signify?

2. Describe Julia interaction with Eduard.

3. Describe Julia arrival at the Rainsferds house.

4. Where doe Julia travel to in the U.S. in her search for Sarah?

5. What clue remains unexplored even after Julia finds out that Sarah died?

6. What does Eduard send to Julia, and what does she learn from it?

7. What decision does Julia change her mind about?

8. What is the tone of the book, up to the point of Julia finding out about Sarah from Eduard?

9. Describe the meeting with William Rainsferd.

10. What does the narrator say Julia is troubled by?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Would you recommend "Sarah's Key"? For what purposes would you recommend "Sarah's Key", and what kinds of readers would you not recommend it? What book would you recommend that would cover the same material or provide the same emotional experience in a different way?

Essay Topic 2

How well made is "Sarah's Key" as a novel? Is it tight, with artful use of theme, motif, metaphor and imagery? Or does it wander, with images and themes coming up and disappearing over time? Does the novel's construction seem deliberate and artful or something else?

Essay Topic 3

Julia Jaramond is an American who has spent twenty-five years in France, and Sarah Starzynski is a Polish Jew living in Paris. Describe the importance, in "Sarah's Key", of nationality and home. Who feels 'at home' and how are these characters different from characters who have a different relationship with place?

(see the answer keys)

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