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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 narrator say was Francis’ relationship with prayer?

2. What role had Dick Doolan played in Francis’ life?

3. What does Helen say she was doing while Sandra was dying?

4. Which of the seven deadly sins prompts Francis to get defensive?

5. What urge does Francis have when he and Helen leave Jack and Clara’s?

Short Essay Questions

1. What misfortune besets Helen after she returns to the Mission with Francis and Rudy?

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

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

4. How is Francis feeling at the beginning of the novel?

5. Where did Francis Phelan’s family lie in the pecking order of the cemetery?

6. Describe the environment of the Gilded Cage.

7. Describe the presence of the dead in Francis’ present day experience, after shoveling dirt at the cemetery.

8. What state is Sandra in when Francis, Helen and Rudy and Pee Wee return from the Gilded Cage?

9. Describe the brotherhood Francis and Rudy share.

10. What is Rowdy Dick Doolan’s role in Francis’ story?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The ending of the novel is ambiguous, but there are clues throughout the novel about whether it might be read optimistically or pessimistically. What indications does Kennedy give the reader about what to make of the ending? What conclusion do you come to about the conclusion?

Essay Topic 2

What is the genre of Ironweed? What type of story is it, and how does it resist categorization? What kinds of evidence does William Kennedy give you, as a reader, for placing the novel in a genre category? Using examples from the text, make an argument for what category of novel Ironweed belongs to.

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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