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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 do the Thugs demand in Chapter 9 in exchange for food?

2. What begins to follow the Doctor's Wife on her way back to her companions?

3. What ailment does the Doctor's Wife fear she has at the end of Chapter 10?

4. What does the Girl with Dark Glasses leave on her parents' door to alert them that she's alive?

5. In addition to the gun, what else do the Thugs carry as weapons?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do the Thugs take control of the food rations?

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

3. What does the Doctor's Wife say to silence the Thugs when they stop by the first ward at the beginning of Chapter 12?

4. What is the result of the other wards having given the Thugs all their valuables at once?

5. How does the Girl with Dark Glasses respond to the Man with the Eye-Patch's declaration of love?

6. How does the Doctor's Wife meet the Dog of Tears?

7. What idea does the Doctor's Wife have when it starts raining?

8. Describe the scene in the Thug's Ward immediately after the Doctor's Wife kills their leader.

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

10. What happens to the Old Woman with insomnia in Chapter 11?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the latter passages of the novel, dogs are a constant presence in the filthy, dying streets of the blind city. Largely, they are seen as scavengers, but one - the dog of tears - is a healing gentle soul. What does he symbolize for the Doctor's Wife? To what extent does his arrival herald a turning point in the story? Is the dog otherworldly? Does it act against its nature? Write, in essay form, about the function of the dogs of tears, focusing a paragraph each of the following:

1. Its entrance into the story

2. Its attitude towards death

3. Its interactions with other dogs

Essay Topic 2

Consider the idea of compassion and love in the novel. Often, the world of Blindness seems devoid of these qualities except in a few strange instances:

Part 1) Explain the Doctor's Wife's strange reaction to seeing her husband in bed with the Girl with Dark Glasses? What is she hoping to accomplish by telling them to stay in bed together?

Part 2) Discuss the reasoning of the women's decision to thoroughly wash the body of the Old Woman with insomnia before trying to bury her? What reason is there for taking such lengths to clean a dead body in such a filthy place?

Part 3) Summarize the understanding that the Man with the Eye-Patch and the Girl with Dark Glasses have at the end of the novel? What is the nature of their love, and how did they come about it?

Essay Topic 3

Create a character arc for the Doctor. As a figure of esteem in the realm of vision before the epidemic, how does he become a figure of scorn after. Citing examples form his time in quarantine, map out his descent from control to helplessness. In what ways does he occasionally reassert his control over life?

(see the answer keys)

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