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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 kinds of questions do the family members ask the narrator while they give him a ride home from Havre?

2. Before his grandmother's funeral, while he is out on the plains alone, what emotion does the narrator realize?

3. After rescuing the cow, what does the narrator realize about his male relatives as he lays on the ground?

4. While hitching a ride home from Havre, what kind of plant does the family stop their car next to for the girl to run behind?

5. Who does the narrator address that he seems to compare to himself and the fate of his people?

Short Essay Questions

1. After the old woman's death, the narrator walks out on the plains alone to think. What significant event occurs while he is out there?

2. What does the narrator think about while struggling to rescue the cow at the end of the book?

3. When the narrator goes out to visit Yellow Calf the second time, what does he learn about his grandmother?

4. How does Lame Bull react to the death of the grandmother?

5. After the narrator spends several days in Havre, what does he finally want to do, and why?

6. Why does the narrator treat Marlene badly?

7. When the narrator walks out on the plains after his grandmother's death, what does he tell Old Bird?

8. When the narrator nearly dies in Chapter 42, what does he suddenly understand about dying?

9. Based on the behavior of the white traveling man, what may have happened if the narrator had driven him over the border?

10. In Chapter 36, before Mose dies, what is the mood of the story?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is significant about the establishments the narrator chooses to enter when he is in town? How do his choices later contribute to his wish for his shadow to disappear and for him to disappear with it?

Essay Topic 2

At the end of the book, the family dresses up and attends the funeral of the grandmother. What is ironic about the situation?

Essay Topic 3

What is the narrator's opinion of the outside world? Recalling the encounters that the narrator has with the outside world, is his opinion warranted?

(see the answer keys)

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