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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 had been a girlfriend in his hometown?

2. The comment that Alicia’s belly “will lie in puddles, a collapsed tent” (233) offers an example of which of the following?

3. Which of the following does Fife note was his hourly pay in his hometown?

4. To which of the following does Malcolm compare Fife?

5. In which month does Fife report arriving in St. Petersburg?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Fife muse that the film crew will gain from their project?

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

3. What does Fife note is his common public image?

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

5. How does Fife explain his teenaged road trip with Nick Dafina as “clean and honorable” (188-89)?

6. What does Fife assert marks the end of his and Nick Dafina’s innocence?

7. What features of Boston does Fife recognize as his plane from Washington arrives in that city?

8. How does Fife define innocence?

9. How is Stanley’s house described?

10. What apprehension does Fife face as he parks in front of a pharmacy in his hometown?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Ultimately, is Fife a sympathetic protagonist or not? How does the novel present him as such?

Essay Topic 3

Is Amy a sympathetic character? How or how not?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 705 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample