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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 kind of character did the author's wife have?

2. In what sense does the author agree that H. is with God, as some friends say?

3. How does Lewis begin his reflections?

4. What does the author conclude about the way that lovers feel about the other one's death?

5. In what sense does the author feel isolated from his wife?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Chapter One, Lewis reflects upon marriage, religion and God. What is one thing that Lewis admits that marriage has done for him?

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

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. How does Lewis try to convince himself that he does not mind H.'s death? Provide examples of the things that Lewis tells himself.

5. Describe some people whom Lewis thinks are having negative reactions to Lewis and his grief?

6. Why can Lewis not talk to his children about their mother?

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

8. What is it about cancer that prompts some of Lewis' reflections?

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

10. Does Lewis believe in the idea of families reuniting on the other side? Upon what does Lewis base his conclusion?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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.

Essay Topic 2

Select three reflections that either resonated with your beliefs or that you had trouble comprehending or believing. Reflect on each one. Be precise when you refer to the selected reflections. Explain what captured your attention about each reflection. Discuss how each reflection might affect you. Also describe how or how not, the book as a whole might have meaning in your life.

Essay Topic 3

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.

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