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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. In which situation might someone "grease your palm"?

2. What is a steward?

3. Who is the first person that the local landowner offers to sell her land to?

4. What does the stranger staying at Pahom's house overnight tell Pahom?

5. When the younger sister is "piqued," what is she feeling?

Short Essay Questions

1. When the devil overhears Pahom's thoughts, what does he vow to do?

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. How does Pahom's relationship with his community change, and what are two specific pieces of evidence for this change?

5. In Chapter I, what is ironic about where Pahom is while he listens to his wife and her sister talk?

6. What sequence of events with Simon follows Pahom's discovery of the stripped trees?

7. In Chapter I, what is ironic about the conversation between the two sisters?

8. 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?

9. What sacrifices do Pahom and his family make for the first plot of land that they buy?

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

When Pahom decides to take his neighbors to court, he thinks "I cannot go on overlooking it, or they will destroy all I have." Pahom likely means this sincerely; what undermines this statement for the reader, however? Write an essay in which you both explain at least two ways in which this statement proves to be ironic.

Essay Topic 3

Explain what the devil's plan is and how he carries it out. Be sure that you discuss his motives, for the plan as a whole and for its details as well.

(see the answer keys)

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