View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the route of the Hornblower family's vessel?

2. What cannot be found?

3. Where are Hornblower and St. Vincent maneuvered?

4. What floats by the Atropos?

5. What does Hornblower have Horrocks do?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Hornblower change the original plans for the docking and offloading of the coffin?

2. What are Hornblower's orders that await him on the Atropos and what does he do?

3. What do the Hornblowers board after the canal board and where does that take them?

4. What happens at Oxford to relieve Hornblower of his volunteer job and then what does Hornblower do?

5. How does Hornblower help the captain of the boat?

6. How is Hornblower feeling and why is it a blessing in disguise?

7. What fascinates Hornblower about the boat on which he is riding?

8. How does Hornblower know something is amiss on the Amelia Jane and what does he do?

9. Why is Hornblower introduced to the Prince of Seitz-Bunau.

10. Why does the boat stop and what is the captain's concern?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Often in Forester's series involving Horatio Hornblower, his ship and/or life is saved by extraordinary means. Discuss the following:

1. Research and define the literary term "narrative contrivance."

2. Identify and analyze a time in the book when Forester makes free use of the technique of narrative contrivance to save Hornblower and his ship in Hornblower and the Atropos.

3. Does the use of narrative contrivance diminish the impact of the plot? The believability of the storyline?

4. Is there any other way Forester could have a mixture of suspense and action while at the same time making certain the main characters are not killed?

Essay Topic 2

Forester is masterful in his description of battles, storms and life in general in the West Indies in the early 1820s. Discuss one of the following:

1. Trace and analyze Forester's descriptive passages about life at sea, particularly in times of stormy weather or difficult passages. How does he use descriptions of the five senses to make the reader feel s/he is there? Do you find his descriptions compelling? Seemingly accurate? How would the novel be different if he did not include such descriptive passages?

2. Analyze Forester's descriptive passages about the social structure of the times and discuss what you think it would be like to be a person of wealth and/or privilege such as Hornblower, The Prince, Admiral St. Vincent or any other characters of the gentleman or noble class. Contrast that to the lives of those who are in a lower social strata such as the Singalese divers or the drunk who is leading the horses in chapter one.

3. Describe and analyze Forester's descriptive passages about the topographical setting and the physical descriptions of the people. Does Forester do an adequate job of actually making the reader "see" the land/sea where the action is taking place? How about getting a visual image of the characters? How do the descriptions of the setting add to the novel? Do you like having an idea of how a character looks? How would the novel be different without such descriptions?

Essay Topic 3

Though the book Hornblower and the Atropos is presented as a cohesive whole, it is written almost as three stories, and hence has several different plots with individual characteristics of exposition, inciting force, conflict, rising action, crises, climax and denouement. Discuss one of the following:

1. Define the major elements of a plot structure and show how those elements exist in the section about Hornblower and Lord Nelson's funeral in chapters 3-4.

2. Define the major elements of a plot structure and show how those elements exist in the section about the recovery of the treasure from the Speedwell.

3. Define the major elements of a plot structure and show how those elements exist in the section about Hornblower and the Spanish ship Castilla

4. Show how these three stories are connected.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,332 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample