View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does a voice advise a soldier to do while he is getting a tattoo?

2. Who had left the back door unlocked?

3. After hearing Grace talk, what does Cy wonder about her?

4. What does Jonesy think is keeping the ladies away from Cy?

5. What seems preordained in Cy's way of thinking?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Claudia become to have so many tattoos and to what does that lead Artura and Claudia?

2. What is the story Henry gives about what happens at the asylum and do the police believe him?

3. How are tattooists looked at in Coney Island?

4. How does Cy feel about tattooing?

5. How is Grace described at the beginning of "The Lady of Many Eyes"?

6. Why do you think Cy returns to Pedder Street in Morecambe?

7. What gives a possible hint to a terrible secret in Grace's past?

8. Describe the first meeting between Arturas and Claudia Overas and Cy.

9. Why does tattooing survive change?

10. What are the sexual images Cy has of mermaids?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Part 2, "History's Ink," Malcolm Sedak pours acid upon Grace. Choose one of the following questions and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text, your research or personal experience:

1. What foreshadowing is there to warn the readers of the scene at the opening to "History's Ink" when Grace is horribly attacked? Give examples and why you think the examples foreshadow the event. Do you think something as intense as this scene needs to be foreshadowed? Why or why not?

2. Discuss the various responses to the attack. Was Claudia justified in beating Sedak? How about Henry giving Grace morphine or Cy believing he has to stay in the hospital or Grace will die? What do you think was Grace's thoughts about it as she lies in the hospital?

Essay Topic 2

In Part 2, "Babylon in Brooklyn," Cy meets Artura and Claudia Overas.

1. Compare and contrast Cy and Artura.

2. Compare and contrast Grace and Claudia.

3. Why do you think Claudia has a larger role in the novel than Artura, who is after all, a tattoo artist like Cy and it is a book predominantly about tattoos?

Essay Topic 3

In Part 2, "The Lady of Many Eyes," there is a description of the baby incubation exhibition. Answer the following questions and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. What is the baby incubation exhibition? Could something like that exist except in fiction?

2. How is the baby incubation exhibition related thematically to the rest of the book?

3. Why does Claudia go there week after week? Do you think there would ever come a time when she would stop? When? Why would she stop going there?

4. Why do you think Claudia will allow Grace to lead her away from the baby incubation exhibition? What does this say about the friendship between the two?

5. Would you ever want to go to a baby incubation exhibition? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,763 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample