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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 one of the issues that Lucy feels is a motive for the assault on her and her farm?

2. What is the musical instrument that David takes up and composes music on?

3. When David comes to the farm to visit, where does he propose that Lucy go for a rest?

4. When David is watching an unaware Lucy, what does the sight of her suggest to him that she is becoming?

5. In the article in the local paper about the attack, how is David described?

Short Essay Questions

1. How might Lucy's and David's switching of bedrooms be construed as symbolic of some other switch between them?

2. Is David disappointed in himself by his agreement to meet Bev at the clinic for a tryst?

3. David mentions that he has "never been given to lingering involvements" as he tries to figure out what is driving him to go see Melanie's play. What then motivates him to go?

4. Is there a symbolic significance to the characters of his libretto in progress "fading away" and being replaced by the corpses of dogs, his new work?

5. What does David make of Lucy's claim that she only went to the police after the attack for insurance purposes?

6. What has Lucy's banjo become for David?

7. Do Petrus's responses to David's rage about the assault seem truly suspicious or might the reader be judging them through David's lens?

8. How might one interpret Elaine Winter's treatment of David at the grocery store?

9. When David rhetorically asks, "Against this new Petrus, what chance does Lucy stand?" what is his implied answer?

10. David explodes at Pollux and says to himself, "Swine. . .Teach him a lesson. Show him his place." How do these remarks reveal the racial attitudes David evidently has?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

At the end of Chapter 5, David reads a report of his indiscretion in the local paper. When the piece mentions that David has written a book on the "nature poet, William Wordsworth," David goes off on a tangent and imagines a sort of epitaph that includes, "David Lurie (1945-?), commentator upon, and disgraced disciple of, William Wordsworth. Blest be the infant babe. No outcast he." What can you infer about David's opinion of himself from this self description? What might this descriptor reveal about David's course of action in this ordeal?

Essay Topic 2

In Chapter 4, David lectures on Byron's poem, Lara. Using the excerpts in the chapter, or the entire text, discuss the themes of this poem and connect them to what are probable themes in David's life before or now.

Essay Topic 3

Chapter 22. When Lucy tells David the name of the rapist next door, Pollux, she spells it, and answers that it is not an unpronounceable name. She furthers her retort by saying, "And David, can we have some relief from that terrible irony of yours?. . .For years you used it against me when I was a child, to mortify me." How can David's casual, but frequent irony have been mortifying to a child? What is the effect of his using this wit to argue his points?

(see the answer keys)

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