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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the woman with the red suitcase do for a living?
(a) She is a doctor.
(b) She designs interior spaces.
(c) She designs poisons.
(d) She is a landscaping designer.

2. Achilles's mother dipped him into the river Styx in order to accomplish what goal?
(a) To give him the power of invisibility.
(b) To make him immortal.
(c) To banish him from the earth.
(d) To bind him to her forever.

3. The woman with the red suitcase has how many grown children?
(a) 2.
(b) 1.
(c) 4.
(d) 6.

4. When Annushka wishes for someone to witness her pain, she visits what location?
(a) A waterfall.
(b) A church.
(c) A bank.
(d) A plateau.

5. The narrator says that she prefers to be more like a gardener than like a what when it comes to her own narrative?
(a) Mistress.
(b) Fortune teller.
(c) Phlebotomist.
(d) Doctor.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the vignette entitled "Whales, or: Drowning in Air," the narrator depicts a beached whale in what location?

2. The narrator sees herself as "the perfect" (179) what?

3. The narrator refers to the inevitable entrapment of people who have not mastered the art of taking what action?

4. Charlotta's personal touch is detectable in the drawings of what two objects on the labels of the specimen jars?

5. The narrator claims that what kind of "sin will be forgiven" (177)?

Short Essay Questions

1. What significance does the unnamed narrator find in the shapes of airports?

2. What object does Tokarczuk use in a metaphor characterizing the nocturnal brain and why?

3. How does the theme of obsession arise within the story about Verheyen?

4. How does Tokarczuk present the theme of being present within the vignette entitled “Irkutsk-Moscow”?

5. Discuss the unnamed narrator's feelings about languages and secrecy.

6. How is the loss of purity theme depicted within the narrator's conversation about giving blood?

7. How do Existentialist ideals creep into Verheyen's later writings?

8. What two points of view does the narrator claim exist in the world and why?

9. How is the theme of ethnocentrism depicted within the vignettes focusing on James Cook?

10. In what way does the theme of regret appear within the story of Van Horssen and his mentor Verheyen?

(see the answer keys)

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