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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 words "Mobility is Reality" (226) appear in the Moscow airport within an advertisement for what product?

2. The narrator proclaims that "seeing means" (182) what?

3. The image of a hand on a postcard causes the narrator to fixate on what objects as she moves about the world?

4. Kunstkammer is the word for "cabinet of curiosities" (267) in what language?

5. The narrator says that she prefers to be more like a gardener than like a what when it comes to her own narrative?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. In what way does the unnamed narrator show an affinity for secrecy?

3. Who is Annushka?

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

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

6. What does the smoke created by the Maori symbolize?

7. What country does the unnamed narrator say is the perfect place for observing people and why?

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

9. 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?

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

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

What message does Tokarczuk send within the pages of Flights concerning the link between travel and a meaningful life?

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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