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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Alison Bechdel's Fun Home is a graphic memoir that is filled with literary allusions. What book by James Joyce is alluded to with the title of Chapter 1: "Old Father, Old Artificer"?
(a) Dubliners.
(b) Finnegan's Wake.
(c) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
(d) Ulysses.

2. Where did the author convince her parents to buy her hiking boots during their trip to Europe in her childhood?
(a) Switzerland.
(b) Norway.
(c) France.
(d) Italy.

3. To what religion did the author's mother ascribe?
(a) Christian Scientist.
(b) Episcopalian.
(c) Baptist.
(d) Catholicism.

4. How did the author's father die?
(a) He hung himself.
(b) He drowned in a river.
(c) He was shot on a hunting trip.
(d) He was hit by a truck.

5. Who is the "smooth-talking fortune hunter" in The Heiress that the author describes in Chapter 3?
(a) Morris Townsend.
(b) William James.
(c) Edgar Spency.
(d) James Waldrop.

6. The author compares her aesthetic to her father's in Chapter 1, saying that she was Spartan to her father's what?
(a) Egalitarian.
(b) Athenian.
(c) Egyptian.
(d) Victorian.

7. The author says in Chapter 3, "Dad was passionate about many writers, but he had a particular reverence for" whom?
(a) Emily Dickinson.
(b) F. Scott Fitzgerald.
(c) Edgar Allan Poe.
(d) Ernest Hemingway.

8. What gift does the author describe having bought for herself after receiving a letter from her mother after coming out in Chapter 3?
(a) A men's suit.
(b) A Swiss army knife.
(c) A book.
(d) A pair of earrings.

9. How old was the author when her father died?
(a) 16.
(b) 22.
(c) 19.
(d) 21.

10. Into what war was Bruce Bechdel drafted?
(a) The Korean War.
(b) World War II.
(c) World War I.
(d) The Vietnam War.

11. In one of the illustrated panels in Chapter 1, the author says, "When I grow up, my house is going to be all metal, like" what?
(a) "A silo."
(b) "A prison."
(c) "A spaceship."
(d) "A submarine."

12. What novel is the play The Heiress based on?
(a) The Sun Also Rises.
(b) To Have and Have Not.
(c) Washington Square.
(d) The Great Gatsby.

13. What skillful craftsman and artist from Greek mythology does the author compare her father to in Chapter 1?
(a) Apollo.
(b) Ares.
(c) Daedalus.
(d) Odysseus.

14. Where is the home where Alison Bechdel grew up?
(a) Mapleton, MA.
(b) Beech Creek, PA.
(c) Brigdon, NY.
(d) New Hope, PA.

15. The title of Chapter 3, ""That Old Catastrophe," is an allusion to what poem by Wallace Stevens?
(a) "A Nail in the Coffin."
(b) "Sunday Morning."
(c) "Odysseus."
(d) "Two Roads Diverged."

Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of truck was involved in Bruce Bechdel's death?

2. Of her father, the author writes in Chapter 1, "... my brothers and I were free labor. Dad considered us extensions of his own body, like" what?

3. Who is the male leading role in the play where the author's parents met?

4. Why did the author complain about the wallpaper her father chose for her room in Chapter 1?

5. What gift did the author's mother give to Joan immediately after Bruce's funeral?

(see the answer keys)

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