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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 does the author think might have a special ability for the miracle of love?

2. What action does the author say is useless if God hurts to heal?

3. Why could the author's records not achieve his intended purpose?

4. What did the Incarnation achieve, according to the author?

5. What is the only thing the author thinks matters about his anger toward God?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the difference between how Lewis felt at the beginning of the book and how he feels at the end of his reflections?

2. What does Lewis mean when he writes that all reality is iconoclastic? How does this statement relate to Lewis's thoughts about his love for H.?

3. What signs are there that Lewis is beginning to come out of his depression?

4. What does Lewis write that his notes ultimately have been about?

5. What feelings follow from Lewis's experiences when he is not thinking about H.? How is his feeling related to his grief?

6. How does the consolation that previously so wearied Lewis, "She is in God's hands", strike Lewis by the last chapter?

7. What are Lewis's reflections about images in the fourth chapter?

8. What does Lewis mean when he writes about a house of cards?

9. What does Lewis mean when he writes that he can believe that God is a vet? Conversely, how is it difficult for Lewis to think of God as a vet?

10. At the beginning of Chapter Four, why does Lewis decide that he will not fill more than four journals?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

For the first two chapters, Lewis is immersed in emotions, in raw agony. In the third chapter, he takes a significant turn. As Lewis points his ability to reason toward his grief, he begins another stage in the process of his grieving.

1) What questions does Lewis ask about H.'s death and what it means for the whole of life? When Lewis writes about the "problem of the universe," what does he mean?

2) Describe the difference between what Lewis believed before H. died and what he questions after she dies. What is the main difference between the two conditions of belief? What is important about the difference for the possibility of a sane and rational life of faith?

3) Regarding faith, what Lewis believed prior to H.'s death has everything to do with his faith in God and in what he had been taught. How does Lewis think about his faith after H. died?

Essay Topic 2

What does Lewis mean in Chapter Two when he writes, "Heaven is a state where 'the former things have passed away'"? What has passed away? What is the "Heaven" to which Lewis refers? What prompts Lewis's reflections on his desires to have H. back? Cite any quotes used in the text.

Essay Topic 3

In Chapter Two, Lewis describes an encounter with a man whom Lewis had not seen for a long time. Discuss the feelings and realizations Lewis experienced through his encounter with this man. How does Lewis describe his realization to the reader, and why might he choose that method to describe his realization?

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