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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. During Annushka's endless trips around the city, she finds a mentor in whom?

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

3. The narrator says that the airport in which city is shaped like a plane?

4. Captain James Cook's search for a mysterious island is depicted as taking place in what year?

5. The narrator repeats again and again that each of her "pilgrimages aims at some other" (266) what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What element does the narrator name as a "natural" (227) characteristic of the world?

2. How does Tokarczuk use postcards as a symbol?

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

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

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

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

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

8. In what way does the theme of compassion arise within Annushka's story?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

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

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.

(see the answer keys)

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