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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. Where is Ritu going on her pilgrimage?

2. What does the narrator think about Karim living in India?

3. Who recommended the treatment that Ritu is receiving that makes her scream?

4. What is the relationship between Tessie and Beth?

5. What is a suttee?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator reveal about Douglas's life in Section 30?

2. Why does the narrator decide to travel to the town of X in the final chapter?

3. Describe the behavior and actions of the midwives during Olivia's abortion.

4. Based on her actions in Section 23, is the narrator a kindhearted person?

5. Does the narrator trust Maji?

6. Is Maji sympathetic to the narrator?

7. Describe Olivia and Douglas's relationship in Section 23.

8. Explain the importance of the red strings in Section 26.

9. Describe the narrator's first night, and impressions of, Bombay.

10. How does the narrator feel upon discovering that she is pregnant?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

Select two characters from the story that have different perspectives of the same event. Write two letters, one from each character addressed to the other, describing their event and what happened. For example, you might use Douglas and the Nawab's account of Olivia's pregnancy, Chid and Inder Lal's perceptions of the narrator's journey, or Dr. Saunders' and the Begum's perception of Olivia's abortion.

Essay Topic 3

The amount of freedom and choice varies greatly among the characters in Heat and Dust. Compare and contrast how each set of characters below is trapped by, wastes or uses their given freedom in the story.

1) Douglas and the Nawab.

2) Olivia and the Narrator.

3) Chid and Ritu.

(see the answer keys)

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