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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 Ishmael say is the consequence of thinking that the world was made for us?

2. What does Ishmael say is the premise of the narrator’s creation myth?

3. What does the narrator say, in Chapter 6, is the problem with his culture’s story?

4. What does the narrator say he does with the newspaper the first time he reads Ishmael’s ad?

5. In Chapter 5, what perspective does Ishmael say the narrator should look at the world from?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Walter Sokolow adopt Ishmael?

2. What correlation does Ishmael draw between Nazi Germany and the narrator’s culture?

3. What does Ishmael say the Takers’ relationship to the Community of Life is?

4. What does Ishmael say the narrator’s creation myth justifies?

5. How does the narrator characterize the problems with the narrator’s culture?

6. How does Ishmael say the Takers envision the earth?

7. What is the narrator’s creation myth?

8. How does Ishmael say that their discussion is like sightseeing?

9. How would you characterize Ishmael’s tone with the narrator in general, as they talk regularly?

10. What is the ‘but’ Ishmael says is part of the narrator’s culture’s myth, and where does the ‘but’ come from?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the outcome of the dialogue between Ishmael and the narrator? What influence has the book had on American or western culture? What influence does it have in your reading? How might this book change the story you are enacting?

Essay Topic 2

Would you recommend Ishmael? For what purposes would you recommend Ishmael, and what kinds of readers would you recommend it for? What other book would you recommend that would cover the same material or tell the same story in a different way?

Essay Topic 3

What are the simliarities and differences between Ishmael and normal novels, with plots—with rising action, climax, falling action and a denoument? In what ways is the dialogue between Ishmael and the narrator typical of novels? In what ways is it un-novel-like? From a literary standpoint, is its uniqueness a benefit, or an oddity?

(see the answer keys)

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