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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. Who sails around the world in the Spray?

2. To which tribe is Sitting-in-the-Water-Grizzly reported to have belonged?

3. To which of the following does Marian compare Barclay?

4. What is Lloyd’s middle name?

5. To what years does Little America IV date?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is noted as forcing Miss Dolly to relocate her establishment?

2. At Addison’s trial, what theory is advanced for the destruction of his ship?

3. When her father asks what he could have done to help her, what reply does Annabel make?

4. How does Matilda mark out the distinctions among first-, second-, and third-class passengers on the Josephina Eterna?

5. For what does Marian grieve after her first flight to Vancouver?

6. What reason does Hadley cite for leaving Oliver?

7. What is Marx’s primary observation about flight?

8. How does Hadley describe the feeling of confronting choices at college?

9. How is Sitting-in-the-Water-Grizzly reported to have been killed?

10. How is Addison’s home in New York City described?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The two focal characters, Marian and Hadley, are made parallel in several ways, including by being orphans. How might the novel have been different had their parallelism been developed in other ways? For one such other way, what would the effects be, and why would they be those effects?

Essay Topic 2

Hadley makes the following comment: "The fantasy, I said to Oliver [after watching a movie], is that you—you, Joe Moviegoer—might also possess extraordinary powers and not even know it, or you might at any moment be transformed into someone who does. But the fantasy is also about containment. Ungovernable forces come to roost inside heroic human bodies or are shrunk down and carted around in vials and briefcases. The end of everything is held inside a tiny ball of light" (107).

Does the novel confirm or deny the assertion made in the comment? How does it do so? To what effect?

Essay Topic 3

Notably, Wallace is a painter—and Jaime becomes one later. How might the story be different were Wallace and Jaime in a different line of work or artists in another medium? Why might it be different in those ways?

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This section contains 651 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample