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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 happened to John when he was 14?

2. Who is Harmon?

3. What does John remember about the night of the boiling plants after Arthur Lux and Vinny Pearson leave?

4. What does Eleanor Wade say about her son?

5. What shape does John's awareness of his action take?

Short Essay Questions

1. What additional information do we get about the night of the boiling plants?

2. What does John tell Kathy in his letters from Vietnam?

3. What is the problem with the hypothesis in Chapter 14?

4. What do we hear about Weatherby that adds to what we heard about earlier?

5. Describe the importance of the abortion Kathy had.

6. What limits are imposed on the omniscience of the narrator?

7. What did John discover when he returned from the war?

8. What indication does the book give us about what really happened?

9. Why did John lose the election?

10. What do we learn about John's character from the evidence and narrative?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is Tim O'Brien doing with the form of the novel by refusing to answer the question of Kathy's disappearance? How is 'In the Lake of the Woods' different from the 'typical' novel? What is the benefit of that difference? What are the drawbacks?

Essay Topic 2

Based on the contents of the book, describe what John's future is likely to be like. Where would he go, and what would he do, after losing radio contact? Is he done with life? Is he ripe to start over? Base your answer on evidence from the text.

Essay Topic 3

What questions are we really asking when we ask what happened to Kathy? What is this book really about, at bottom?

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