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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 world does Laura feel she now inhabits?

2. What does Laura intend to do in the hotel room?

3. What do both Clarissa and Louis notice about each other?

4. Where would Clarissa like her ashes to be scattered?

5. How much of her book has Laura now read?

Short Essay Questions

1. What gives Laura the feeling that she has actually succeeded in achieving a kind of perfection?

2. What distracts Laura as she gets out of her car at Mrs. Latch's house?

3. Over what matters concerning Julia does Clarissa worry?

4. What does Louis think of Clarissa?

5. What makes Virginia, at this point, begin to reconsider killing off her character, Mrs. Dalloway?

6. Why does Walter want to buy his young partner a present?

7. Why is suicide not an option for Laura?

8. What does Virginia see as a kind of devil?

9. What is Richard's most precious memory of Clarissa?

10. What writing decision of Virginia's is prompted by her success in her campaign to move back to London?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the tension between commitment and freedom in the lives of the characters in Michael Cunningham's The Hours. Focus particularly on two major characters and one minor one.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay that discusses the contribution of the minor characters in The Hours. Could any of them have been omitted? What difference do they make to the story? Do they enrich it in any way?

Essay Topic 3

What does the novel The Hours have to say to us about human love and human frailty? Express your ideas with close reference to the text.

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