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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 does Inder Lal's mother do to calm the screaming person in the courtyard the night of March 9th?

2. What do Karim and his friends think about the narrator's plans to visit India?

3. Why won't the narrator have sex with Chid in Section 17?

4. Who awakens the narrator by screaming in the courtyard on March 9th?

5. What is a suttee?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Olivia's feelings about and prior to the dinner party that she and Douglas attend at the Nawab's palace in Section 6.

2. What do Douglas and the Nawab represent in Section 16?

3. Is Maji sympathetic to the narrator?

4. How does Harry's reluctance to bring Olivia to the palace forecast events to come?

5. Is the narrator helping Chid when she lets him stay with her in Section 14?

6. Describe Harry's argument with Olivia in Section 22.

7. Describe the beggar the narrator notices and helps in Section 23.

8. Describe the narrator's clothing and her reasons for choosing them in Section 4.

9. Explain how Olivia reveals the details of her pregnancy to the possible fathers.

10. What is the wish that the narrator makes with the red strings, and why?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Many minor characters in Heat and Dust have an important role in the story and a huge impact on other characters. Choose characters below and discuss the impact or the role that this person has on other characters in the novel.

1) Harry.

2) Maji.

3) Ritu.

4) Mrs. Saunders.

Essay Topic 2

Symbolism occurs in many forms in Heat and Dust. Select 3 symbolic items from the list below, or elsewhere in the story. Answer the questions that follow about those 3 items. Red strings, the piano, Olivia's letters, Chid's robe, the Nawab's palace, the Saunders' baby's grave, the grove, Baba Firdau's shrine, the royal tombs, Maji's hut.

1) Explain the significance this item has to the story and to specific characters.

2) Relate the symbolic item to the culture in which it exists.

3) Discuss what the story would lose without the inclusion of this symbolic item.

Essay Topic 3

Heat and Dust is told from the narrator's first person journal entries and from Olivia's first person accounts in her letters to Marcia.

1) What is gained and lost from the author's use of this perspective for the story?

2) Who else could have told this story and what would the impact of their different viewpoint be?

3) If the narrator did not have Olivia's letters, but had heard of her story through oral accounts, how might the story change?

(see the answer keys)

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