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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 Maji say will happen after the pilgrimage party reaches the tree line of the mountain base?

2. Why does Harry tell the narrator and Mrs. Crawford that he has only been to the Nawab's mountain chalet once?

3. What best describes the Nawab's palace during the narrator's first visit?

4. What does the narrator receive from Chid in Section 21?

5. Who accompanies the narrator to Husband's Wedding Day?

Short Essay Questions

1. Is Chid a tolerant person?

2. Compare Chid's letters in Section 21 to Olivia's letters.

3. Explain how the narrator tells Chid and Inder Lal about her pregnancy in Section 28.

4. Do you think Chid is a sadhu?

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

6. Describe the narrator's room in Satipur City.

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

8. Why does the narrator write to Chid's family in Section 31?

9. Why does Inder Lal's mother take Ritu on the pilgrimage?

10. Why is Husband's Wedding Day significant to the narrator in Section 15?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss how the author effectively uses nature or weather to develop one of the story lines listed below:

1) Olivia and the narrator's pregnancies.

2) Olivia's marriage to Douglas and relationship with the Nawab.

3) The narrator's exploration of Olivia's life.

4) Ritu's ailments.

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

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.

(see the answer keys)

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