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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 joins the pilot who does the skywriting for the Beet Festival?

2. For whom is Jude Miller searching in chapter 14?

3. As mentioned in chapter 10, who has "a face like Sitting Bull"?

4. What has hurt Mary's business in recent years?

5. What holiday does Wallace Pfef describe as "hard on a man alone"?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Mary normally behave during a children's party?

2. What happens between Mary and Mrs. Shumway in chapter 10?

3. How does Wallace Pfef find out about the relationship between Celestine and Karl?

4. Describe Sita's hallucination in chapter 8.

5. How do Mary and Celestine deal with Sita's body?

6. What was Wallace Pfef's "private disaster" during the Christmas play, as mentioned in chapter 12? Why does he describe it that way?

7. Explain Mary's reaction to Celestine's Jell-O prank.

8. Describe the setting in which Celestine gives birth.

9. How does Karl interact with Dot in chapter 12? Does Dot respond well? Explain.

10. Describe Wallace Pfef's "poor dead sweetheart."

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does Erdrich use different narrators to create different effects? Choose a scene and describe how its narrator conveys the situation from a particular perspective. Then explain how the reader's perception of the scene would have been different if Erdrich had chosen a different narrator.

Essay Topic 2

Describe in detail the character of Fleur Pillager and her role in the novel.

Essay Topic 3

What does the rain at the end of the novel signify, and how does it compare to other symbols in the novel? Explain.

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