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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. Which of the following news events does Fife note in the paper before he leaves for Vermont?

2. Which of the following terms do Emma and others use to describe Fife’s mental and narrative meanderings?

3. Which of the following schools is Alicia reported to have attended?

4. The comment that “She says it with the authority of a grade-school teacher” (5) offers an example of which of the following?

5. The comment that “A small squirt of it enters his mouth from below. It tastes like battery acid” (87) offers an example of which of the following?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Fife describe Malcolm’s cinematic standing?

2. Where does Fife sit on his flight to Boston, and why?

3. How does Amanda surprise Fife when she returns to her living room before their first assignation?

4. What objection do the Chapmans initially raise to Fife’s son’s name?

5. What advice does Emma have for Malcolm concerning the lucidity of Fife’s narration?

6. What reasons does Fife note for feeling sorry for Diana?

7. From what source do the Chapmans have money?

8. What reasons does Emma give to try to persuade Fife that giving the interview is unwise?

9. What reasons does Fife note for deciding against the Chapmans’ offer?

10. Why does Fife tell Emma he has to confess to her in front of witnesses rather than in private?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Is Amy a sympathetic character? How or how not?

Essay Topic 2

Consider the following passage:

There’s no such thing as the end of childhood, [Fife] says to Emma. It’s only innocence—infancy—that actually comes to an end. That’s when childhood begins, and childhood is a region, not a marker. And it is vast and extends even into old age and death. It’s like a coastal marsh between the land and the sea, he explains. It’s a zone of dwarfed trees and mudflats and estuaries, where waters flow back and forth in opposite directions following the pitch and fall of the land and the phases of the moon and the shifting patterns of the winds. (179)

Does the novel support Fife’s assertion about the nature of childhood? How or how not?

Essay Topic 3

Consider the following passage:

But after these ten years away, it can’t be all that painful now, [Fife] assures himself. He’s no longer afraid of the shame that he once associated with the mere mention of the name of the place. He’s a different person now. People change. What harm can come to his new life by setting that town alongside it? Even if the town is altogether unchanged, which he doubts, it won’t threaten his hard-won balance and momentum. Not anymore. He’s a different person now. They are no longer in conflict, Fife and his hometown, Fife’s present and his shameful past (124).

Does the novel bear out the assertion of the passage? How or how not?

(see the answer keys)

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