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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 the expression "racked his brains" mean?
2. What does Pahom's wife say may happen to a man in town?
3. The story opens with two sisters. What does the older sister's husband do for a living?
4. What problem does the new steward create for the local peasants?
5. Why does Pahom end up taking his neighbors to court?
Short Essay Questions
1. What sequence of events with Simon follows Pahom's discovery of the stripped trees?
2. What prevents the peasants from buying the nearby landowner's land as a group instead of as individuals?
3. In what two ways is Pahom's first decision to buy land different from his later decisions?
4. Pahom is most angry at the neighbor who has cut down his trees because whoever it was did not just take one or two trees but instead cut down a whole clump of trees. Why does this make Pahom angry, and what is ironic about his anger?
5. In Chapter I, what is ironic about where Pahom is while he listens to his wife and her sister talk?
6. How does Pahom's relationship with his community change, and what are two specific pieces of evidence for this change?
7. What sacrifices do Pahom and his family make for the first plot of land that they buy?
8. In Chapter I, what is ironic about the conversation between the two sisters?
9. When the devil overhears Pahom's thoughts, what does he vow to do?
10. What changes the relationship between the woman who owns land near the village and the peasants, and how does the relationship change?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Why does Pahom ignore the dream he has about the devil laughing at him? Write an essay in which you give both textual evidence and psychological reasoning to explain why he would ignore a warning like this.
Essay Topic 2
Write an essay analyzing the way that the symbolism of Pahom's final day on earth is used to ask questions about the purpose of life. Be sure to discuss the sun, the rules about beginning and ending on the same spot, and Pahom's discarding of his clothing and possessions along the way.
Essay Topic 3
The deal that Pahom intends to strike with the Bashkirs takes place in a context in which the reader is told that the Bashkirs are not formally educated and speak no Russian. Why might Tolstoy have included these details? Write an essay in which you make a claim about Tolstoy's use of the Bashkirs as a way to comment on Pahom's ethics.
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This section contains 1,047 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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