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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 in the first ward defends the anonymous person who killed the Leader of the Thugs?

2. What is the group doing when the Man with the Eye Patch declares his love?

3. What is the Doctor's Wife doing when the Thugs enter the first ward to mock the women?

4. What does the First Man decide to do with his house at the end of the chapter?

5. How many women from the second ward go to the Thugs?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what state do the Doctor and his Wife find the Gaunt Old Woman when they approach her building?

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

3. Describe the old woman with insomnia in Chapter 9.

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

5. Why would the Doctor's Wife's mentioning to the stranger she meets that she is going home reveal that she can see?

6. What plan does the Doctor's Wife and her band of companions develop after the asylum burns down?

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

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

9. Describe the Thugs' ward.

10. Why doesn't the Doctor's Wife tell the other inmates that she can see?

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

Several objects have major effects on the outcome of events in quarantine. Write a body paragraph about each of these objects: initial impressions upon its first appearance in the narrative, conjecture about its possible use by characters, and eventual function within the story:

Part 1) The gun

Part 2) The scissors

Part 3) The lighter

Essay Topic 3

Food - and the search for it - becomes a destructive force in the land of the blind, leading to distrust, dehumanization, and sometimes death:

Part 1) Discuss the distribution of food in the first days of quarantine? Before the Thugs arrive, is the process of food distribution fair and straight forward? In what ways are the baser qualities of humankind on display even in these passages?

Part 2) As the Thugs arrive at quarantine, how does the balance of power shift regarding food? Discuss the quarantine is transformed into a Hobbesian nightmare with food as the sole objective?

Part 3) After quarantine, what instances of death occur as a result of the search for food in the city? In the era of white sickness, can humanity be safe as it seeks to subsist.

(see the answer keys)

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