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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. The identification of “a cause that certainly had no tendency to render the effect agreeable to him” (268) offers an example of which of the following?

2. With which of the following devices is Jennet summoned in the Winthrop household (233)?

3. The comment that “the wing is strengthened by use, and the bird that drops in its first flutterings about the parent nest, may yet soar into the sky” (268) offers an example of which of the following?

4. Which of the following is named as a servant in the Wintrhop household (230)?

5. Which of the following is noted as the “chief of the Mohegans” (249)?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reasons does Everell give on Digby’s island for thinking that Hope Leslie is enamored of Gardiner?

2. Why, per the novel, is the Winthrop household put into disarray by Hope Leslie’s absence at the beginning of Volume II?

3. How is Pynchon reported to have deduced Hope Leslie’s involvement in Nelema’s escape?

4. What trees grow on the hill to which Mononotto takes Everell to be sacrificed?

5. What does Gardiner posit as justification for Madam Winthrop inveighing against laughter (265)?

6. How does Magawisca disguise herself to meet with Hope Leslie in the graveyard?

7. What reasons does William Fletcher give for sending Hope Leslie to Boston at the Winthrops’ request?

8. Explicate the comment from Magawisca that her people “never turned their backs on friends or enemies” (241).

9. Consider Grafton’s comment that “this unlucky prayer-book is gnawed to mince-meat by the mice, and not another book in the library touched. I longed to commend the instinct of the little beasts, that knew what good food was” (266). What is the irony in her comment?

10. What reasons does Gardiner write for preferring Hope Leslie as a potential love interest?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Sedgwick takes many words to describe the physical scenery of the natural world in her novel. What effect would the descriptions likely have had on Sedgwick’s ORIGINAL readership? What in the text would prompt that effect? How would the effect have been achieved?

Essay Topic 3

Digby remarks that “It is one thing to know what danger is, and wish to shun it; and another thing to feel like you, fear-nought lads, that have never felt a twinge of pain, and have scarce a sense of your own mortality” (89). Does the novel agree or disagree with the assertion? What in the text indicates it? How does it do so?

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