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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. What is the name of the article John reads in the Ladies' Home Journal?

2. What baseball team does Jack Boughton favor?

3. What does John's wife give him at breakfast on his birthday, wrapped in tissue paper?

4. What does John encourage his son to do when he is an old man himself?

5. What did Jack steal from John that made him "as angry as I have been in my life"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the nature of John and Jack's first discussion at the church?

2. What are Jack's reasons for coming home to Gilead?

3. Describe the relationship Jack had with a lower-class, uneducated girl.

4. How does John respond to Jack's question about his family moving to Gilead?

5. What are two memories of pranks that John and Boughton share on Boughton's porch?

6. John states that he doesn't forgive Jack, writing "I wouldn't know were to begin." What provokes this statement?

7. What are John's thoughts on "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine"?

8. Describe John's birthday.

9. Contrast how John felt about Lila when first becoming acquainted with her to how he felt about his first wife, Louisa.

10. How does John describe the responsibility that comes from encountering another person?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

John's grandfather's personal belongings - specifically, the gun and the two shirts - can be considered potent symbols. Discuss what these items might be symbolic of, how other family members respond to them. Consider especially John's mother and father's response.

Essay Topic 2

John is a pastor, as was his father and grandfather before him. The pastorate is obviously linked to the church, and more often than not, the church is identified with a building. Discuss how the church building is a metaphor of the limitations placed on the three generations of Ames men, and how the aging church building in the book is tied to the state we find John in.

Essay Topic 3

John's wife and son remained unnamed for the majority of the book. His wife's name is heard only from the mouth of Jack Boughton late in the novel. Discuss why Robinson chose not to reveal these names, taking into consideration John's relationship with his immediate family and how he views the two in his own life.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 849 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample