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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 Billie Holm?

2. How does the laird describe Norday Island to his factor in chapter 5?

3. What dates are carved on Jacob Olafson's stone?

4. How many Norday men are put on the list to be sent as seamen on His Majesty's men-of-war?

5. Who does Jimmy Greenay save from drowning in chapter 7?

Short Essay Questions

1. What kind of food does Mara the seal wife like to eat?

2. Who was Revd Hector Drummond and what was he like?

3. What does Thorfinn take with him when he is liberated from the German war camp?

4. Did the peace treaty between Chamberlain and Hitler stop the work on the Norday Aerodrome?

5. How does Mara react when a seal is captured and killed by the fishermen?

6. When the workmen are sent to build the aerodrome on Norday Island they are quite unhappy. What cheers them up?

7. Who is Sophie?

8. What does Thorfinn do when he returns to the island after the war?

9. Why are all the doors gone from the island homes when Thorfinn returns to Norday after many years absence?

10. How is the story Mr. Simon is telling the class (early in chapter 5) relevant to the fantasy sequence in which Thorfinn marries a seal wife?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a detailed character sketch of Mara, the seal wife. What does she give up by marriage to Thorfinn? What is it that she longs for? What is it that she cannot stand, finally, and why does she return to the sea? What does she look like? How does she see the world? What does she want?

Essay Topic 2

Make a list of all the imaginative stories. What is the place of Thorfinn in each? How does his fictional character evolve? What does he learn (briefly) from each dream adventure?

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?

(see the answer keys)

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