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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 the premise of the story told by the foreign visitor?

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

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

4. What activity does the Count suggest would benefit from Luciane's personality?

5. What does Charlotte warn Ottilie about, during their discussion of Ottilie's preferred vocation?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. How does Charlotte discover Eduard has rejoined the military, and how does she respond to this news?

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

10. What amusement does the Count suggest should occupy Luciane's energies?

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

Compare and contrast the characters of Charlotte and Ottilie. How does the narrator describe them? How are their characters similar, and how do they differ? What is their relationship like at the beginning, middle, and end of the novel? What events, people, objects, or circumstances inform each woman's decisions, thoughts, feelings, and actions? What motivates each woman? How does the narrator treat each woman through the way he describes them and the specific language or tone he uses?

Essay Topic 3

Examine the role of human beings in shaping the natural landscape. What do the four protagonists use the land for? How do they view their use of it, and the general purpose the landscape has? Describe their relationship to the land in terms of the utilitarian, the picturesque, the beautiful, and/or the sublime? What does nature seem to symbolize for each character, and what is the significance of this symbolism? How might a reader interpret the protagonists' use of and relation to the land as a statement by Goethe about human interactions with nature in his own time and place?

(see the answer keys)

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