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Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. Who are Pedro and Sebastian in The Town-Ho's Story?
2. What is the narrator's condition when he goes to the theater in London?
3. Where do both the captain and Steelkilt go after they separate?
4. What object does the lookout spot that takes Melville's ship to Norfolk Isle?
5. Where does the narrator in The Town-Ho's story tell his tale?
Short Essay Questions
1. In "The Happy Failure," what is the uncle's great invention?
2. What superstition do sailors have about the tortoises in "The Encantadas"?
3. Why does the narrator say that pity turns into repulsion?
4. Why does Melville come to believe that some buccaneers on the isle of Albermarle must have been gentlemen?
5. What was disrespectful about Radney asking Steelkilt to sweep the deck?
6. What does the captain decide to do with Steelkilt and those who followed him in insubordination?
7. What does the author of "Poor Man's Pudding" and "Rich Man's Crumbs" pray that Heaven will save him from?
8. Why does Melville refer to Oberlus as "a creature whom it is religion to detest?"
9. How does the creditor in "Cock-a-Doodle-Doo" torment the narrator?
10. What does the narrator say happens to one in command who discovers a subordinate who is "significantly his superior"?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Melville employs a wide variety of stylistic techniques in his writing, including a poetic use of repetition. In "I and My Chimney," for example, he writes of " . . . a mysterious door, entering to a mysterious closet; and here I keep mysterious cordials of a choice, mysterious flavor." In your essay, analyze this and other examples of artful repetition you find in these stories.
Essay Topic 2
When Billy Budd is impressed into the royal navy, the captain of the ship he is leaving says that a former enemy, called Red Whiskers, " . . . now really loves Billy--loves him or is the biggest hypocrite that ever I heard of." Is this an instance of skillful foreshadowing? In your essay, analyze why the captain's lament is or is not an example of Melville's foreshadowing the main conflict in Billy Budd.
Essay Topic 3
An allegory is a story that is in itself a symbol or represents an idea. Select one of Melville's allegories, such as "The Piazza" or "The Bell Tower" to analyze in terms of its symbolic significance.
This section contains 836 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) |
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