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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. Which of the following at Bethel are described as “its minstrels” (110)?

2. The phrase “Daughter of disloyalty and mother of all misrule” (52) offers examples of which of the following?

3. In Karcher’s commentary, the term “extralegal” (27) carries which of the following meanings?

4. To what city were the Pequod captives taken?

5. In which of the following parts of England was William Fletcher born?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reasons does the novel note for William Fletcher to have “fixed his residence a mile from the village” (62)?

2. What does Karcher identify as the primary thrust of the Calvinist theology under which Sedgwick was raised (15)?

3. What justification for revenge is accorded to Mononotto (106)?

4. How is Bertha Grafton described at her first appearance in the novel (74)?

5. What does Karcher note as Sedgwick’s refocusing of “the emergent national literature” of her era (12)?

6. What reactions does William Fletcher’s reserved manners prompt from his companions aboard the Arabella, and why, per the narrator (60)?

7. What does Karcher identify as the primary thrust of the Unitarianism to which Sedgwick converts (16)?

8. Why does Karcher relate one early critic as stating that Sedgwick provides for early American women writers (10)?

9. What reasons does Magawisca report her father citing for refusing the pardon of the English after the Pequod War (100)?

10. With what do Everell and Digby entertain themselves while on watch against attack (92)?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The narrator remarks that “the rights of innocence were paramount to all other rights” (171). Does the novel as a whole agree with the assertion? What in the text shows the agreement or disagreements? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

Consider Winthrop’s comment that “private feelings must yield to the public good” (290). Does the novel as a whole agree or disagree with the comment? What text supports that position? How does it support the position?

Essay Topic 3

What is the significance of Karcher’s comment that “Sedgwick won not only the adulation of her female successors but the respect of her male peers[sic]” (10)? What in the text and in experience indicates that significance? How does it do so?

(see the answer keys)

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