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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who is Atufal?
(a) A chained slave.
(b) Babo's best friend.
(c) A leader of the slaves.
(d) A complaining woman among the slaves.

2. Whose cause does the Marquis de Grandvin champion?
(a) Freedom fighters.
(b) The French.
(c) Animals.
(d) Women.

3. What caused the bell-ringing automaton to kill Bannadonna?
(a) A manufacturing error.
(b) Jealousy.
(c) An unrepaired defect.
(d) A design flaw.

4. What does the narrator's wife think of his apprehension about the apple-tree table?
(a) She thinks he is drunk.
(b) She thinks he is making it up.
(c) She thinks he is crazy.
(d) She thinks he is trying to frighten her.

5. What emblem does John Gentian refuse to wear?
(a) Any Revolutionary War emblem.
(b) Any American flag.
(c) Any Civil War emblem.
(d) Any emblem of wealth.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Melville hope to do for the Marquis de Grandvin?

2. How does the lightning rod salesman feel about thunderstorms?

3. Why does the narrator of "The Piazza" feel that the house must have a piazza?

4. What is unusual about the strange ship's figurehead?

5. What does the narrator in "The Paradise of Bachelors" say has become of the Knights Templar?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Melville say is the difference between boarding a strange ship and entering a strange house?

2. What does the narrator of "The Piazza" think when he first sees a single bright spot in the northwestern hills?

3. Why doesn't the narrator in "The Piazza" grant Marianna's wish and tell her that he is the resident of the house that she believes contains happiness?

4. Why does the owner of the paper factory in "The Tartarus of Maids" tell the narrator that all of his workers are called "girls"?

5. What does the narrator of "The Fiddler" first admire about Hautboy?

6. What is Captain Delano's intention in boarding Benito Cereno's ship?

7. What does the narrator claim shows Jack Gentian's natural gentility?

8. Why does the narrator of "The Lightning Rod Man" compare the salesman to a worm?

9. What is unusual about the bug that emerges from the apple-tree table in the story of that name?

10. What does the chimney in "I and My Chimney" provide for the narrator on the second landing?

(see the answer keys)

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