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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 does Fife note passing when he returns to his hometown on the way to Vermont?

2. The comment that Joan Baez “was like their Joan of Arc riding up on her white horse to inspire them and validate their plight” (130-31) offers an example of which of the following?

3. From which of the following colleges did a teenage Fife flee?

4. At which of the following times does Fife note the bars close?

5. Which of the following does Fife propose to purchase in Strafford?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is Stanley’s house described?

2. What reasons does Fife give Alicia that his marriage to Amy was wrong?

3. How does Fife describe Amy’s reaction to Boston?

4. How is Stanley described when Fife arrives at his home?

5. With what interviewing technique does Malcolm credit Fife?

6. How does Malcolm note Fife’s filming of Joan Baez and others at her headline event differs from other depictions?

7. What are Nick Dafina’s military plans?

8. What items does Fife note having in his briefcase in Boston after being separated from his luggage?

9. How does Fife define innocence?

10. What sentence is noted for the guilty party in Fife’s work on priestly misconduct?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explicate the symbolism of Fife’s car breaking down at the edge of his hometown at the end of Chapter 12.

Essay Topic 2

Describe the progress of the Chapman family’s attitude towards Fife.

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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