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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 is the author of "Afterward"?

2. What is the name of Mary and Ned's house?

3. What event causes Mary to temporarily forget about the mysterious man they saw in October?

4. After Mary thinks more about the house and its ghost, what does she begin to wonder?

5. As Mary thinks back over the events of October, she sees a figure coming toward the house again. Who is it?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do the Boynes tell Alida Stair about why Lyng's drawbacks are not problems from their point of view?

2. What horrifying chain of events does Mary understand once she sees Bob Elwell's picture?

3. What does Alida Stair tell the Boynes about Lyng?

4. What strange conclusion does Mary come to about the relationship of the ghost to the house, Lyng?

5. What is Mary doing on the morning that Ned disappears?

6. In the beginning of section "IV," how much time has elapsed since Ned's disappearance, and what has been happening in that time?

7. After she finds out that he has gone out with the mysterious man and not yet returned, why is Mary immediately alarmed?

8. What do Mary and Ned plan to do with their time at Lyng?

9. How has Ned's mood changed on the morning after he and Mary first discussed the Blue Star lawsuit, and what does Mary believe changed his mood?

10. What is the name of Ned's book, and what is the thematic significance of this title?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay that takes and defends a position about the emphasis Wharton gives to the physical evidence of Ned's emotional state. What is happening when he seems anxious, and what is happening when he seems relieved? From whose perspective is all of this shown, and why? How do these choices contribute to the story's overall meaning and effect? Be sure to support your claims with specific textual evidence.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay that examines the final sighting of Bob Elwell's ghost. Why does Wharton take up space with the elaborate procedure of questioning various maids? Why not simply have Trimmle be the one to see the mysterious visitor? Why have any of the maids see him at all? What is the significance of the slip of paper, and why do the exact details of the encounter matter so much to Mary as she thinks back over Ned's disappearance many months later? Make a claim about how the choices Wharton makes regarding the ghost's final appearance impact the meaning of the overall story.

Essay Topic 3

Edith Wharton once wrote in a letter to a friend, "The American landscape has no foreground and the American mind no background." She was talking about gardening and landscaping, which was a special interest of hers, and justifying her taste for importing European landscape fashions to her own property. Consider this quote in relationship to the setting and characterizations in "Afterward." What do you think that Wharton meant by the quote, and does her having said it make her seem more or less like the Boynes? Write an essay in which you explore the quote and then make and defend a claim about how it sheds light on Wharton's relationship to the Boynes.

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