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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 does Jacob Olafson bring back with him to Norday Island?

2. Where does Sir James MacTavish purchase the horse Seamus?

3. What does Albert Laird make for Olafson?

4. What is the name of the shepherd who lives up in the high mountain pass in chapter 2?

5. Who are the Varingers?

Short Essay Questions

1. When and where does Old Jacob Olafson die?

2. How are the men of the North treated when they had sailed into the Byzantium empire?

3. What does the title of chapter 3 refer to?

4. What is the general opinion of Thorfinn in the village of Norday?

5. Why is the Battle of Bannockburn so important?

6. What reaction does Jacob's wife, Rena, have to arriving on Norday Island?

7. Why does the school teacher, Mr. Simon, have trouble paying for his groceries at the village shop in Norday?

8. What is Mr. Harcourt-Smithers place within the island community?

9. What are some of the things that village people buy at Isa Estquoy's shop on Norday Island?

10. What is the family situation of Matthew Ragnarson at the beginning of the book?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why does Thorfinn leave when the Aerodome project arrives? In the previous chapters he has always dealt with conflict and trouble with stories and imagination? Why doesn't he do that in chapter 7? What has changed? Is the challenge simply too great for him to face? Or has he become a man and is making a different kind of choice?

Essay Topic 2

The style of writing a story within a story is somewhat unique. What does this literary device allow the author to reveal about his main character, Thorfinn? Why doesn't he simply write a book of imaginative stories? How is this double layer of reality different? How does it affect the reader?

Essay Topic 3

Write a detailed character study of Thorfinn. How is he introduced? What are the major obstacles placed in the path of this protagonist? How does he evolve through the book? What does he learn and how does he change?

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