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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. In Chapter Four: Living in Yellow, what author does Deborah say wrote a poem about bees that Deborah remembers?

2. In Chapter Four: Living in Yellow, where was the apartment Deborah says she moved to?

3. In Chapter Two: The Tempest, what is Deborah's marriage in her metaphor?

4. In Chapter Six: The Body Electric, what does Deborah say she thought of Holloway Road as?

5. In Chapter Five: Gravity, who does Deborah say helped her?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Chapter Three: Nets, what does Deborah say her neighbor asked about as Deborah had packed up? What had Deborah's family members used these items for?

2. In Chapter Two: The Tempest, who does Deborah say she met at a funeral? What was his story?

3. In Chapter Four: Living in Yellow, what does Deborah write about her supporting her family in this time? What does she say about her freedom?

4. In Chapter One: The Big Silver, who does Deborah say was named "Big Silver"? Why was he called this?

5. In Chapter Two: The Tempest, how does Deborah apply the Big Silver metaphor to herself? How does she say she applied it to in her own life?

6. In Chapter Five: Gravity, how does Deborah say she set up her shed? What did she furnish it with?

7. In Chapter Two: The Tempest, what does Deborah say she resented most about her divorce? How does she say she thought of her unhappiness?

8. In Chapter Five: Gravity, what did Deborah say she started going through? What does she say the paragraph she read reminded her of?

9. In Chapter Three: Nets, what does Deborah say holds together the family home? What does Deborah say is the disintegration of this story?

10. In Chapter Four: Living in Yellow, where does Deborah say she moved? How does she say she thought about this move?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Levvy says: "I was more interested in a major unwritten female character" (123).

Does the autobiography write this female character? If so, what does it write? If not, where does it fall short? How are Deborah and the other women in the book either this unwritten female character or different variations of her? How, according to the book, does it become possible to write the unwritten?

Essay Topic 2

Read the short story, the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the autobiography, there are several instances of wallpaper discussed. First, Deborah has a problem with her walls being painted yellow, then she references the short story, by Gilman. Alongside the metaphor of the Family Home being taken apart, Deborah also talks about her writing student having, "torn the wallpaper off the walls of her family house and slipped her hand inside the naked bricks for something she knew was there" (71).

After reading Gilman's short story (it is 10 pages), write on what is happening. How does Deborah transform Gilman's metaphor into her lived reality? How is it similar or different how Deborah applies this metaphor for her own use to how she sees it in her student? How does the continued metaphor reflect the evolving struggles that a woman feels trying to be herself? (consider how Gilman uses the wallpaper and what her character experiences versus Deborah, her student, and other women you may want to bring into the conversation, such as Deborah's mother).

Essay Topic 3

Consider the names and themes of each of the chapters in the autobiography. Each one connects to a theme carried out in the chapter, as well as an overall cadence of the autobiography. How are the chapters grouped together or connected by their titles and themes, either in groups, or across numbers? How are they all connected together for a layout of narrative? Use the chapter names for an exploration of what the narrative arc of the autobiography is, and what parts are specifically connected to one another.

(see the answer keys)

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