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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 event precipitates the arrival of Charlotte's daughter at the estate?

2. How does Eduard's part in the story end?

3. What effect does the foreign visitor to the estate have on Ottilie, when he expounds upon the uselessness of over improving the land?

4. What experiment does the foreign visitor's companion try on Charlotte and Ottilie?

5. In the wake of the tragedy, what is Charlotte and Ottilie's relationship with each other like?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the novel end?

2. What does Ottilie decide to embark upon as a career, and why?

3. What foreign visitor comes to the estate, and how do his views impact Charlotte and Ottilie?

4. What are Charlotte's views of memorials?

5. Describe the circumstances of Ottilie's death.

6. What is the nature of the "pendulum experiment" that one of the foreign visitors proposes, why does he propose it, and what are its results?

7. What is the first faux pas the foreign visitor commits, and why is it a social flub?

8. What plans does the architect have for the church?

9. How does Ottilie respond to the tragedy involving herself and Otto?

10. How does Charlotte respond to the tragedy involving Ottilie and Otto?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Examine the significance of Ottilie's death, the circumstances surrounding it, and her specific method of death. What are the indirect and direct causes of her death, and what event or events precipitate her death? Can "starving" be related to any other instance, theme, interaction between characters, or symbol in the novel? Was Ottilie's death and her method of killing herself foreshadowed anywhere else in the novel? Who, if anyone, can be considered culpable in Ottilie's death, if it was a suicide? How does the method of Ottilie's death reflect her characteristic reliance on fate and on her own inaction (or the actions of others) throughout the rest of the novel?

Essay Topic 2

Examine Ottilie's character as it evolves over the entire course of the novel. What is Ottilie like in the beginning of the book, in the middle, and by the end? How does she express her thoughts and feelings? What sort of language does she use, and how does the narrator describe her directly and indirectly? What notable actions does Ottilie take through the course of the novel, and what motivates these actions? How are your perceptions of her shaped by Ottilie herself, by other characters, and by the narrator?

Essay Topic 3

Examine the role of the sciences which are mentioned or utilized in the novel: mathematics, chemistry, geography, history, natural science, architecture, and derivations of alchemy. What are the main and minor characters' views on the sciences? How are these sciences used in the novel? In the context of the early 19th century, what were the roles of various branches of science, and how were the sciences viewed in European culture? Where do you see connections between the actual cultural and historical context of this novel, and the references to the sciences within it?

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