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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 is the narrator’s reaction when he hears the rival creation story Ishmael tells in Chapter 4?

2. In Chapter 6, what does Ishmael say is unobtainable in the narrator’s culture?

3. What does the narrator say was removed when man learned to farm?

4. What has the narrator’s coldness become, now that he mentions it to Ishmael a second time, at the end of Chapter 5?

5. In the narrator’s account of his culture, in Chapter 5, what was the problem early man had to solve?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What does Ishmael say will be the result, once the narrator learns to hear Mother Culture’s voice?

3. What is the rival creation story Ishmael tells the narrator?

4. What does Ishmael say is his greatest fantasy?

5. Why is the narrator so upset to see Ishmael’s ad in the paper?

6. How does Ishmael describe the difference between living in Africa and living in a zoo?

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

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

9. Describe the narrator’s first encounter with Ishmael.

10. What does Ishmael say man’s purpose is, in the narrator’s creation myth?

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

When the narrator tells Ishmael that he has a question, Ishmael says that asking questions is what the narrator is there for. How seriously is this statement intended, do you think? Is that the narrator’s primary role—asking questions to elicit Ishmael’s stories—or does he have other purposes that are more important than that?

Essay Topic 3

In what ways is Ishmael relevant to contemporary readers? What contemporary issues are in play in the book, and how would the book contribute to contemporary discussion? Cite specific discussions from contemporary sources, and cite specific instances from the book that describe its contemporary relevance.

(see the answer keys)

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