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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. When Mary thinks back on the October visit from the mysterious man, she thinks that it "had no mark of the portentous" (86). What does this mean she felt about the visit at the time that it happened?

2. When Ned begins to read the newspaper in the library in section "II," he tries to sound casual as he asks Mary a question. What is the question?

3. Why does the narrator say that Ned and Mary are "two romantic Americans" (83)?

4. Why does Mary believe that people should not talk about seeing ghosts?

5. When Mary discards her first two ideas about what is bothering Ned, she comes to a conclusion that upsets her. What is it?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What draws the Boynes to England?

4. What does Ned tell Mary about the Blue Star lawsuit?

5. What happens with the mysterious visitor on the day that Ned disappears?

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

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

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

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

10. On the day of his disappearance, what is so frustrating for Mary about her conversation with her staff about where Ned is?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay that examines the issue of unearned privilege in "Afterward." How far does the story go in its critique of Mary and Ned's lifestyle? Might it have gone further? You may choose to also use evidence about Wharton's own life, depending on the scope of your thesis; if you do so, be sure to cite your sources in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

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.

Essay Topic 3

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.

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