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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 does Cy realize about the skin after the doctor talks to him?

2. Of whom does the tall nurse who sends Cy home remind Cy?

3. What hums perpetually, eliciting screams?

4. What does Cy offer Nina?

5. What is the poor man's illustrator?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. When Cy is somewhat inebriated in Vargas, he makes what connection between Grace and his mother and how does he react to that connection?

3. Why does Cy stay open on rainy days and describe one such day.

4. Why does tattooing survive change?

5. How does Cy compare Coney Island to Morecambe?

6. What secret of Claudia's does Grace hold?

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

8. Do you think Sedak deserves what they do to him?

9. How does Cy feel about tattooing?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

There are a number of themes that run as a thread throughout the novel. Choose one of the following questions and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. Trace the development and resolution of the theme that beauty and destruction are often related. Use specific examples to illustrate how this theme is expressed. Analyze the examples and offer an analysis of the existing political situation during this novel.

2. Trace the development and resolution of the theme of "working through pain." Use specific examples to illustrate how this theme is expressed. Analyze the examples and offer an analysis of the how the concept of duality manifest in character personalities and in the physical setting.

3. Trace the development of the theme of violence. Use specific examples to illustrate how this theme is expressed. Analyze the examples and offer an analysis as to why this theme is central to the novel's plot.

Essay Topic 2

Near the very end of the book after Cy has returned to Morecambe, he takes on an apprentice, Nina Shearer. Choose one of the following and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. Compare and contrast Nina's behavior as an apprentice to Cy's behavior as an apprentice.

2. Compare and contrast Riley's teaching methods to Cy's teaching methods.

3. Discuss how effective Riley and Cy's teaching methods are and Cy and Nina's learning methods are and the strengths and weaknesses of each. To which teacher would you more likely be similar? Which apprentice?

Essay Topic 3

As the novel opens and then moves along to its conclusion, some characters seem to change more and some seem to stay the same. Choose one of the following and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. Compare the character of Cy from who he seems to be during the first half of the book to the person he seems to be in the latter half. How is he alike? How different? Which "person" do you like the best? Why? How is Cy more alike and more different from Riley at the end then at the beginning?

2. Compare the character of Grace from who she seems when she is first introduced to how she seems after her hospital stay. How is she the same? How different? Which "person" do you like the best? Why? Has she changed more or less than Cy in the course of the novel?

3. Compare and contrast Riley, Claudia, and Reeda from who they seem to be when they are first introduced to who they are revealed to be by the end of the story. How much do they change or become who they really are? Or do they change? Who did you like at first and then dislike by the end of the story--and vice versa?

(see the answer keys)

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