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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. Later during the day of this ride back from trying to get David's car, David and Lucy communicate again about their difference of opinion regarding Lucy's staying on the farm. What is their method of communication at this time?

2. Several days after the attack on the farm, what does Ettinger offer David?

3. When David comes to the farm to visit, what proposal does Petrus have for Lucy that he asks David to offer her?

4. What is one thing that Rosalind criticizes about David's appearance when they meet?

5. Why does David disagree with Lucy's wanting to leave the event?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. What is ironic about David's suggestion at the end of Chapter 22 that Lucy is as humiliated as a dog?

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. After Lucy is raped and she and David give their report to the police, David asks her why she omitted the fact that she was raped. What reason does she give her father for this omission?

5. The description of Teresa in the last chapter is, "She wants to be rescued--from the pain, from the summer heat, from the Villa Gamba, from her father's bad temper, from everything." This is about David's fictional character, but fiction is based upon what writers know. Does this description hint at David or Lucy's need for respite?

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

7. How is it appropriate that David is awakened by a spitball when he is in the theater?

8. What is there about Lucy's description of her rape that she thinks that David cannot before this have understood?

9. When David read the article in The Herald that reports the story of the assailants and what happened at Lucy's farm, how is his reaction in keeping with his character?

10. What might one make of David missing the ducks and the dogs?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Chapter 16. David cares very much for his daughter, yet repeatedly feels that he ineffective in his goal to help make her life easier. Is he actually ineffective in her eyes or does he just imagine that Lucy sees him this way?

Essay Topic 2

Soraya wants David out of her life and yet he says he admires her. What does David's admiration of Soraya suggest about him? Is he idolizing her? Does he ignore her treatment of him or does he see something beyond her warnings to never see her again?

Essay Topic 3

What is it that brings about the ethical and moral transformation of David in Chapter 14? Is this transformation the result of his experiences and trauma of the violent attack or is he "replacing" the vitality that Lucy lost?

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