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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 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?

2. To which of the following does Fife declare an intention to go to Cuba?

3. Onto which of the following roads does Fife turn unthinkingly, heading to his hometown?

4. Which of the following are reportedly visible from Stanley’s home?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What comments are made regarding Fife’s dormitory room in his first collegiate attempt?

2. What causes Fife to come to a sudden stop as he drives out of Boston?

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

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

5. What are Nick Dafina’s military plans?

6. What does Fife note as a primary Sunday occupation in St. Petersburg?

7. How does Fife define innocence?

8. With what interviewing technique does Malcolm credit Fife?

9. Why does Fife note having felt suspicious as he leaves the bank with the deposit check from Alicia’s trust fund?

10. What does Fife muse that Renée does for him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the following: “Fife asks Sloan if she can imagine believing […] that she’s already ruined her life. He means destroyed her future, shut off all possibilities of ever realizing the American dream, or the Canadian dream, although he doesn’t think there actually is a Canadian Dream” (57). Does the novel bear out the last assertion, that there is no Canadian dream? How or how not?

Essay Topic 2

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?

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)

This section contains 898 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample