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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 did a strange boy give the narrator in the theater?

2. What did the American ship, the Essex, see in the Encantadas?

3. Why doesn't the narrator dismiss Bartleby for insubordination?

4. What are the two failings the narrator sees in his middle-aged scrivener?

5. How is the narrator punished for sneaking into the church?

Short Essay Questions

1. What superstition do sailors have about the tortoises in "The Encantadas"?

2. What does Steelkilt demand to prevent a mutiny?

3. How is the accuracy of copy verified by scriveners?

4. In "The Happy Failure," what is the uncle's great invention?

5. What purpose does the circle of listeners serve in "The Town-Ho's Story"?

6. Why does Melville call Redondo the "aviary of the ocean"?

7. What did Steelkilt's followers decide to do upon their release?

8. What do the sailors in "The Encantadas" do with tortoises?

9. What does the narrator say happens to one in command who discovers a subordinate who is "significantly his superior"?

10. How does the narrator respond the first time Bartleby answers a request with, "I would prefer not to"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Melville states that Moby Dick operates to do the work of God by killing Radney. A Deus ex Machina (god out of the machine), where an outside source ends the conflict between characters, is a literary device often disparaged. In your essay, consider its effectiveness in this instance and in other Melville short stories where this method is employed.

Essay Topic 2

Setting is particularly important in Melville's stories. Select a story in which the setting is critical, such as the confinement of shipboard or the home as a center for domestic disputes. Analyze the use and power of the setting in the story you chose.

Essay Topic 3

Melville has a gift for inventing language: "The picturesque yields to the pocketesque." The government of the island was a "riotocracy." Find and analyze examples of invented language. Are the new words useful? Comprehensible? Effective? Discuss their effect on you as a reader.

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