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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 is the Danish aristocrat mentioned in Chapter 2?
2. Who said a long poem takes between five and ten years to write?
3. Who did Dillard see standing at the chess table in the Roanoke library one night?
4. What did an inchworm search for in a panic in Chapter 1?
5. What sport did Dillard play with a boys' music camp?
Short Essay Questions
1. Dillard vows to remember her difficulties writing in Roanoke, Virginia. Why is this ironic?
2. What analogy does Dillard use to explain how a book leads its writer on?
3. When Dillard heard a June bug bumping up against the carrel window one night, what did the noise bring her to realize?
4. When the cab driver in New York sang songs with Dillard, why did he sing one dull song twice?
5. Why did a ritual slaughterer bid goodbye to his wife and children every morning as if it were his last, in Chapter 1?
6. In Chapter 1, what does Dillard say she thinks of as the usual reasons for an author getting stuck in a book?
7. What is the most appealing schedule that Dillard says she knows?
8. Why does Dillard believe that putting together a book is interesting and exhilarating?
9. How does Dillard describe the line of words as being one's own heart?
10. How is the line of Dillard's words likened to a hammer in Chapter 1?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
In Chapter 6, Dillard explains the haunting aspects of the island on Haro Strait. What haunted Dillard about the island? What is it about these aspects of the island that can be related to the writing life in general?
Essay Topic 2
How is the sensation of writing an unmerited grace, a new idea likened to a chicken laying an egg, as Einstein is to have said? If the gift of writing is handed to you if you look for it, how does Dillard believe you find it?
Essay Topic 3
Describe Dillard's reasoning behind why it makes more sense to write one long book rather than many stories or essays. Use the comparison of book chapters to short stories in your explanation.
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This section contains 1,104 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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