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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. Which unexpected visitor arrives during the performance of the artistic activity planned by the architect?

2. How does Ottilie respond to Luciane's arrival?

3. What is the new house guest's philosophy on education?

4. Who had encouraged the house guest to come to the estate?

5. What is the house guest's suggested remedy for children who do not follow in their parents' footsteps?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the circumstances of Ottilie's death.

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

3. Whom does Eduard meet when he walks through his own estate, and what is the significance of their meeting?

4. What is the general substance of Ottilie's first journal entry, at the end of Part II, Chapter 2?

5. What decision does Ottilie make that she normally never would, and what are the results of it?

6. Where does Eduard go to meet Ottilie, and what are the circumstances of their meeting?

7. In Part II, Chapter 9, where does Charlotte decide to live for a short time, and why?

8. What is the substance of Eduard's proposition to the Major, and the Major's response to it?

9. How does the novel end?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the role of Herr Mittler and the theme of mediation in the novel. What is Herr Mittler's role, and how does he "play his part" by interacting in specific ways with the other characters? How does the narrator act as a mediator between the reader and the characters, plot, and moral of the story? Mediation means to "come between" things--are there any other mediating forces in the novel, besides Mittler, such as other characters, events, settings, objects, ideas, and so on?

Essay Topic 2

Consider the form, style, and content of the novel as a whole. What is the style of narrative discourse in which Goethe generally writes? What type of narrator is Goethe's narrator, and how does he use this figure as a mediation between the story and the reader? What are the effects on the narrative when the narrator occasionally switches verb tense? How does the occasional interspersion of letters and journal entries affect the "flow" of the novel, the reader's perspective of the characters, and the plot itself? How does this story fit into the genre of the novel?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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