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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 does the author conclude it is foolish to expect from the dead?

2. What does the author say happens when we experience any kind of pain?

3. How do some of the author's friends try to console him?

4. If death is real, what does the author conclude about it?

5. How will the author respond if talked to about the "truth of religion"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Lewis think that grief is like fear? Describe the ways in which Lewis experiences fear.

2. Lewis decided to record his reflections to get all his feelings and thoughts out. What does Lewis reflect might be a downside to his journal?

3. How did Lewis feel years ago about a friend's life after death? Contrast that experience with the way that Lewis experiences H. after her death?

4. What impresses Lewis about his realization of the man he had not seen for 10 years and Lewis's actual memories of the man?

5. H.'s absence is most evident to Lewis in his body. How does Lewis experience his own body in his grief?

6. What was so striking and disturbing about Lewis's encounter with the man he had not seen for 10 years? What image comes to Lewis's mind about memories of H.?

7. Lewis turns to C. with questions about God. How does C. respond to Lewis's thoughts?

8. In what ways does Lewis describe H.'s "noble hunger"? Describe the ways that H.'s "noble hunger" displayed itself in H.'s approach.

9. Does Lewis have trouble believing that God exists? Explain.

10. Lewis begins to ask a question that becomes central to his reflections. What "disquieting symptom" introduces itself to Lewis in Chapter One?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Before H. died, what were her nearly last words to Lewis? How do those words compare with words of consolation that Lewis hears after H.'s death? Who does Lewis believe and why? If H.'s words were true, what does it mean for her continuing in God's hands? Describe Lewis's feelings about a God in whose hands Lewis sadly finds his departed wife.

Essay Topic 2

Lewis comes to a point in which he reflects on H.'s anguish as she was dying and the possibility that, with her death, H.'s anguish is over. Write in detail about what Lewis thinks may be H.'s condition now that she is dead. How is the very reflection of a condition different from Lewis's earlier worries about H.? What does this alteration in perception mean for the process of Lewis's grief? What does H.'s possible current condition mean about Lewis's ideas about God? Whom, of Lewis's characterizations about God, might God actually be? Explain what Lewis thinks God might be doing with H. and what that means God does with everyone.

Essay Topic 3

C.S. Lewis was a religious scholar. He brought deep knowledge to his reflections on grief. He also was familiar, prior to H.'s death and certainly after she died, with religious platitudes. Write a developed essay that covers what Lewis says he will discuss about religion and how he will respond. Also discuss what Lewis will not discuss about religion and what he will assume from that particular topic. Describe why Lewis distinguishes among these topics.

(see the answer keys)

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