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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. The narrator sees a postcard meant to evoke Rome with an image of whose hand?

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

3. What does the woman with the red suitcase do for a living?

4. In the vignette entitled "Godzone," a woman from what country packs her red suitcase?

5. The narrator notes that Nebojsa's name sounds exactly like the Polish phrase that means what in English?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is the theme of family bonds demonstrated within Annushka's story?

2. What had the woman in rags been mumbling to Annushka when Annushka became frightened?

3. How does Tokarczuk use postcards as a symbol?

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

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

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

7. What elements does the unnamed narrator consider when deciding whether a story or a lecture is more appropriate for the story she has to tell?

8. Discuss how the motif of dreams appears within the unnamed narrator's vignettes.

9. How is the theme of oppression featured within the vignettes about James Cook?

10. Who is Annushka?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Tokarczuk's choice to tell the story of Flights using a great deal of first-person narration. What elements of the novel's themes lend themselves to this choice and what are Tokarczuk’s intended effects on the reader?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Tokarczuk’s use of metaphor, simile, imagery, and other literary devices as a means to send particular thematic messages within the narrative of Flights.

Essay Topic 3

Sensory details are used frequently by Tokarczuk in order to create vivid pictures of each character's progression through the narrative of Flights. Choose three scenes in which sensory details are heavily used and discuss how the sensory details utilized serve Tokarczuk’s creation of vivid characters to populate the narrative.

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