View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Francis say he behaves when he is drunk?

2. Where does Francis sleep after he and Helen leave Jack and Clara’s?

3. How does Francis characterize Helen in bed?

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

5. Where did Francis go after the first time he killed a man?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Francis’ relationship with his mother.

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

3. What expression does Francis use when something is finally and absolutely concluded?

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

5. What price does Helen pay for sleeping in Finny’s car?

6. What kinship does Francis have with the Phelan brothers?

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

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

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

10. Describe Francis and Helen’s visit to Jack and Clara’s flat.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the role of the city of Albany in Ironweed? Is it an essentially American place that symbolizes the American experience, or is it a personal place whose significance is limited to the author and the particular characters he created?

Essay Topic 2

Who is the audience for Ironweed? What is the ideal reader for Ironweed likely to think about the book’s main topics? How does this book try to affect the reader? What is it trying to teach him or her, or get him or her to do?

Essay Topic 3

Ironweed takes place over three days: Halloween, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. What is the role of these Catholic holidays in Ironweed? What do these holidays explain in the novel?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 920 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample