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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 does John Wesley do as he walks to the woods?

2. What does the Misfit do when Grandmother begins to cry?

3. Who does June Star not want to hold hands with?

4. What causes Grandmother's head to clear?

5. What did Edgar used to carve on his water melon?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why do you think Bailey has such a negative attitude towards his mother?

2. In what way does the Grandmother change moments before she dies?

3. Why do you think the Misfit does not kill Grandmother until the end?

4. What does it say about Grandmother that she cannot keep Misfit's name to herself?

5. In what way does Grandmother manipulate Bailey to visit the plantation?

6. How does O'Connor represent the older generation in the book?

7. What does the story about the melon say about Grandmother's character?

8. Why does not O'Connor tell the reader what Bailey says to his mother?

9. What does the Misfit's description of the penitentiary's walls say about him?

10. In what way does Grandmother's death affect the Misfit?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe the Misfit's time in jail. How do you think it affected him? Does O'Connor portray his time in jail as a help to him? What does it say about the state of prisons in the fifties?

Essay Topic 2

Choose a character from the story and write his or hers background, motivation and character conflict. How would the story change if they were not there?

Essay Topic 3

O'Connor does not give either the mother or Grandmother real names. What is the reason O'Connor does not give them names? Why do you think only the female characters do not have names?

(see the answer keys)

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