Print
Word
PDF
|
| 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 does the breakfast stove make for breakfast?
2. What is the house compared to as it burns to the ground?
3. During the fire, what does Bradbury compare the house's dialogue to?
4. What "delicacies" does the fire consume upstairs?
5. The line "And swallows circling with their shimmering sound" is an example of which technique?
Short Essay Questions
1. Explain the inclusion of the Sara Teasdale poem in this story.
2. What is suggested by the fact that the house repeats the date "three times for memory's sake"?
3. What is the meaning of the silhouettes on the side of the house?
4. What is the likely purpose of including mechanical creatures such as rats and roaches?
5. Explain the significance of the nursery decor.
6. How does Bradbury use the dates on which the story takes place as a form of foreshadowing?
7. Explain what evidence there is that the house deliberately causes the dog's death.
8. Explain how the pun in the line "The morning house lay empty" explains why the house is empty and foreshadows the story's later revelation of the family's fate.
9. What are the poses of the people in their silhouettes on the side of the house, and why are they important to notice?
10. Explain what is ironic about the rain in the nursery scenery.
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Read and then write an analysis of "What the Dead Man Said" by Chinelo Onwualu (available online). Your thesis should make a claim about the story's theme, and the rest of your essay should defend that claim.
Essay Topic 2
The setting of the short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" is meant to be a middle-class home in a city near San Francisco, California. Most critics agree that Bradbury intended this to appeal to his audience as a sort of "universal" setting that would bring home to his audience that the devastating effects of nuclear war can happen very suddenly to anyone--not just soldiers, not just people in "other" countries. What is your opinion of this choice? Do you think that it accomplishes its intended purpose? Do you think that this purpose is worthwhile? Be sure to explain your reasoning.
Essay Topic 3
The narrator of "There Will Come Soft Rains" is a very traditional third-person narrator, taking a removed and seemingly unbiased stance on the events of the story. But is that actually the case? What evidence do you see that the narrator actually does have an opinion about these events?
|
This section contains 1,070 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
|
