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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. How does the narrator characterize Gerald’s eternal repose?

2. Who was the first man Francis Phelan killed?

3. What does the narrator say is in short supply on Halloween night?

4. Where did Francis tell the intern in Indiana his fingertip was?

5. How does Francis characterize his reaction to the death of Dick Doolan?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Francis’ father die?

2. How did Francis come to see Aldo Campione die?

3. Describe Francis’ baseball career.

4. When Helen says that she won’t go back to Finny’s car, she says that she might call her people. What is the irony in this?

5. How did Francis end up with a job shoveling dirt at the cemetery?

6. What effect is created by the author’s sophisticated vocabulary?

7. What is the importance of Halloween in the book’s setting?

8. Describe the environment of the Gilded Cage.

9. How does the narrator describe Gerald’s body in the grave?

10. Describe Francis’ relationship with his mother.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Use this book as a meditation on the value of a five-star rating system. Is a five-star system sufficient to a book like this? Would you need to have sub-topics for the rating system, for plot, characterization, language, etc? What other sub-topics would you need? What value or importance gets lost in a five-star scale? Design a scale that would be better for this book.

Essay Topic 2

How would Ironweed be different if it were told from a woman’s point of view? How would Annie, or Helen or Clara or Sandra change the nature of the book, and reveal the world of bums that Francis Phelan lives in?

Essay Topic 3

What role does Francis’ baseball career play in Ironweed? Is the sport part of his bum lifestyle, or was it a period when he was something other than a bum? How does the novel reconcile Francis’ present life with the life he lived as a ball player?

(see the answer keys)

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