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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 god does the narrator in "The Lightning Rod Man" think the salesman resembles?

2. What contributes to the narrator's thoughts about the apple-tree table being supernatural?

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

4. What surprises Captain Delano when he first sees Benito Cereno's ship?

5. Where do "'Gees" come from?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Why is the narrator despondent at the beginning of "The Fiddler"?

4. How have the Knights Templar changed, according to Melville's observations, in "The Paradise of Bachelors"?

5. What does Jimmy Rose retain after he has lost his fortune?

6. Why did the Spanish naval board of inquiry at first reject parts of Benito Cereno's deposition?

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

8. Why does the narrator of "I and My Chimney" believe his chimney is good for invalids?

9. What haunts the narrator at the conclusion of "The Piazza"?

10. In "The Lightning Rod Man," why does the narrator pretend to mistake the salesman for the god Jupiter Tonans?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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.

Essay Topic 2

A recurring theme in Melville's stories is the difference between appearance and reality. Choose a character such as Claggart, who appears to have only sterling qualities but is evil in his heart or a setting such as the mountain home in "The Piazza," which seems at first to be like a fairyland, to analyze the point Melville is making.

Essay Topic 3

Melville often uses a distinctive double negative in description. For example, Captain Delano is described as "undistrustful." Later, he is said to be "not unbewildered," and "not uninfluenced." What is to be gained by using these terms instead of "trusting," "bewildered," and "influenced"? Is there a difference between being undistrustful and trusting? If so, what is it? Find other examples of this peculiarity and analyze its use.

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