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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. A character with what name believes that every human should write a book?

2. Another one of the pilgrims featured within Flights considers what philosophical work to be more practical than the Bible?

3. How many of the first vignettes focus on the narrator's motivations for writing?

4. Once Kunicki's wife and child go missing, the locals keep repeating to Kunicki that the island is not what?

5. The donkey owner observes that the American tourists are different from the others in what way?

Short Essay Questions

1. What method does the narrator prefer when dealing with locations in which she has been hurt?

2. Describe Blau's feelings about the discipline of medicine.

3. What are the narrator's feelings about guidebooks?

4. The narrator's use of the word pilgrim throughout the novel is an allusion to what great work of literature?

5. According to the unnamed narrator, what is possibly "the greatest wonder of the world" (72) and why?

6. What does the narrator announce as the aim of each one of her pilgrimages?

7. What is the message contained within the vignette entitled "Travel Sizes"?

8. What conclusions does the narrator draw about islands and why?

9. How is personification used to underscore the deep love Blau has for the study of anatomy?

10. What coping mechanism does Kunicki primarily use to deal with the stress of his missing wife and son?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

William Faulkner once famously claimed that the most important literature deals with the subject of the human heart in conflict with itself. Explain how the theme of Human versus Self is demonstrated within Tokarczuk’s novel Flights. Create a decisive, arguable claim and prove it with quotes from the novel.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Tokarczuk’s messages about guilt and responsibility within Flights. Focus especially on elements such as the feelings of responsibility Verheyen’s protege feels toward Verheyen, even after his mentor’s death.

Essay Topic 3

Explicate the theme of appearance versus reality within Flights. What is Tokarczuk’s message regarding appearances versus the nature of reality and how do you know?

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