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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 did doctors do during Price's surgery at the end of the semester?

2. What does Price say his health was doing while he was writing the commissioned work?

3. What had Price learned about pain, in biofeedback?

4. What does Price say accompanied his pains, now?

5. What did Dan convince Price to do?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Price's community react to his being housebound?

2. Describe Price's withdrawal from methodone.

3. What was Price's prognosis after falling from his wheelchair?

4. Describe the story Price told when he was commissioned by Hendrix College.

5. What advice does Price offer to doctors?

6. What do Jeff and Lettie Anderson offer Price?

7. What does Price say about the pain he felt after falling from his wheelchair?

8. How does Price say he thought about his future?

9. What professional triumphs did Price enjoy in the winter of 1987?

10. What was the new demon Price experienced after his second surgery?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is Reynolds Price's literary style like, and how does Price's language itself reveal the effect his illness had on him? Where is his language most powerful, in his life? What experiences does it fail to do justice to? How does he compensate for the weakness of his language?

Essay Topic 2

What is the significance of Price's dream of Jesus in Lake Kinnareth? How does Price use this image and the stories that are related to it in his own account? What resonance does the image of Jesus at Lake Kinnareth, and the Bible stories associated with that lake, have with the events Price describes in Whole New Life?

Essay Topic 3

The AIDS epidemic began in the U.S. in 1981, only a few years before Price's illness. How does the spectre of AIDS appear in the book, and how does Price handle the panic and dread that comes from a possible death sentence (even though his condition was quite different from AIDS)? Are there thematic similarities with AIDS patients, that give AIDS a resonance in "A Whole New Life"?

(see the answer keys)

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