View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Rosie's career aspiration?

2. What does the Chief believe about the current level of discipline in the primitive community?

3. The Chief figure declares that he is operating under what type of government?

4. What is the name for the primitives' religious leader?

5. Why was Dr. Poole buried up to his waist by the gravediggers?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the landing of the Canterbury and the crew's first sight of land.

2. Why does the Chief order his gravediggers to bury Dr. Poole?

3. How do Bob Briggs and the narrator initially become interested in "Ape and Essence"?

4. What does Bob Briggs ask Lou Lublin for, and why? How does this relate to a religious painting?

5. Describe the Chief's conception of "Democracy."

6. What is the importance of where Tallis preferred to be buried?

7. What point does the script narrator make about baboons and knowledge?

8. List the allusions/references found in this section of the text.

9. What are the specifics of Bob Briggs' personal troubles at the outset of the novel?

10. How is Dr. Poole described? What does Dr. Schneeglock think of him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How is organized religion depicted in Ape and Essence? Do you believe Huxley intends the Arch Vicar's religion to provide a characterization of all of organized religion? How might the Belial religion compare to modern Christian religion? Is organized religion another of society's ills in Huxley's view?

Essay Topic 2

Much discussion is centered around the discovery of the truth and the nature of knowledge. What kind of theory of truth/knowledge does the novel put forth? How do the Arch Vicar and Dr. Poole differ about the nature of truth and knowledge? What is the consequence for an absence of truth?

Essay Topic 3

Ape and Essence presents a dystopic view of the future. What is a dystopia? What are the features of such a place? What specific aspects of Ape and Essence are dystopic? Why might an author depict such a dystopia?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 988 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample