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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. What is the first useful item that the Doctor's Wife finds in the grocery storeroom?

2. What does the Girl with Dark Glasses not realize?

3. What emotion does the Doctor's Wife feel toward the guard?

4. Who is the first man in the first ward to protest that the women should not submit to the Thugs?

5. Which ailment is not mentioned among those prevalent in quarantine?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the Girl with Dark Glasses' decision about remaining with the Doctor's Wife?

2. What arrangement do the Thugs make for payment?

3. Describe the state of the outside world since the blindness disease has spread to almost every citizen?

4. How does the Writer go about writing without his sight?

5. How does the first ward get its information of the outside world?

6. What are the sleeping conditions in quarantine now that all of the beds are full?

7. What is the general attitude in the other wards when food stops arriving at the main entrance?

8. Describe the Thugs' ward.

9. What is the Doctor's principle argument for now trying to stop his wife from going to the Thugs' ward?

10. How do the Thugs keep track of their earnings?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

If the novel Blindness is a parable, what is the lesson? Each of the surviving characters grows in a certain way from their experience in quarantine. What does the breakdown of their lives teach them? Cite examples for three of the surviving characters, noting how they behave at the beginning of the novel and at the end.

Essay Topic 2

Burial is an important component of the narrative. As time goes on, the characters' attitude toward interring their dead changes. In an essay, state the change that occurs in this attitude and how this change mirrors the characters' change in self-image. Map this change through the burials of the following:

1. The Thief

2. The four first ward inmates shot by the guards

3. The Old Woman with insomnia

4. The Gaunt Old Woman

Essay Topic 3

Choose one of the following topics to discuss in essay form:

1.) What qualities - besides her ability to see - make the Doctor's Wife a good leader to the group after they leave quarantine? How does she develop these leadership qualities and what are their limits?

2.) What aspects of the government's plan prove to be erroneous? Do you think government officials lacked suitable leadership in dealing with the white sickness, or were events simply too powerful for any leader?

3.) Had a different person from the Leader of the Thugs had a gun and taken control of the food supplies, could the result have been positive? Could order, cleanliness and fair distribution come about, or does absolute power corrupt absolutely?

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