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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 does Brown use to protect the ferry?

2. What does the Judge do with the boy's puppies?

3. Where does the gang find its scouts mutilated?

4. Who do Toadvine and the Kid meet at Alamo Mucho?

5. What small town does the gang enter?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the gang get to the town of Jesus Maria?

2. How do Glanton and his gang use the ferry?

3. Summarize the novel.

4. Describe how the man dies.

5. How do Toadvine and the Kid escape the Indians?

6. How does the book end?

7. How does the gang celebrate its victory?

8. In Chapter 21 how do the Kid and Tobin recover?

9. What do the women do with the boy in the cage?

10. In what way does Chapter 20 show a theme of evil?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Examine the novel's violence.

1) Is the violence accurate to how it really was?

2) How did such an environment affect characters like the Kid? Did they become immune to the violence? How would someone like the Kid cope when he is back in normal society having seen so much death?

3) Does McCarthy representation of violence have a point to make about contemporary society?

Essay Topic 2

Blood Meridian is a popular book which has greatly influenced modern literature. Choose a book written after Blood Meridian that you think was influenced by the novel and discuss their similarities in terms of:

a) plot

b) character

c) themes

Essay Topic 3

Examine the novel's chronological setting.

1) What were the main concerns during the 1850s. How does McCarthy express these concerns?

2) In what ways do you think the novel's meaning would change if it were set in today's society?

(see the answer keys)

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