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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. With which of the following does Gardiner lodge in Boston (251)?

2. How old is Esther Downing when she meets Everell?

3. Which of the following characters is Winthrop’s jailer?

4. How, per the novel, is Esther Downing related to Governor Winthrop (187)?

5. The term “garrulity” carries which of the following meanings?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why are Winthrop’s indigenous guests offended at the dinner when Everell and Gardiner arrive in Boston?

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

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

4. What activities does the narrator remark typify a Puritan Saturday evening (212)?

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

6. What is Hope Leslie’s reaction to her own placing Esther Downing’s hand into Everell’s and commending them to one another on Digby’s island (270-71)?

7. What justification does the narrator give for the description of “a pilgrim mansion” (197) in the terms used in the novel?

8. What sounds reach Hope Leslie atop the mountain at Northampton (153)?

9. Whom does the narrator remark meet on equal footing in Sabbath services (213)?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Would Hope Leslie be likely to achieve CRITICAL ACCLAIM in the literary market of today? That is, would literary critics and scholars be likely to approve of the book? What in the text suggests that it would / not? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

Sedgwick takes many words to describe the physical scenery of the natural world in her novel. What effect do the descriptions have on CURRENT readership? What in the text prompts that effect? How is the effect achieved?

Essay Topic 3

The novel depicts Winthrop as commenting on “that passiveness, that, next to godliness, is a woman’s best virtue” (208). Does the novel support or reject the assertion that such passiveness is a virtue for women? What in the text confirms the support or rejection? How does it do so?

(see the answer keys)

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