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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. Who does Joan like to go to the movies with?

2. What is the relationship between Arthur and Joan?

3. How does Paul escape from Poland during the Russian Invasion?

4. In Chapter 3, what is the weather when Joan awakens?

5. How does Joan contact Arthur from Rome?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Joan want to start a new life?

2. Describe Joan's first encounter with Arthur.

3. How does Joan's mother try to control Joan's weight?

4. Explain why Joan does not tell her husband Arthur that she writes Costume Gothic novels.

5. Describe Joan's approach to meeting Paul and having a relationship with him.

6. What role does Marlene Pugh reappearance in Joan's life play?

7. How does Joan change after becoming willing to publish Lady Oracle under her own name?

8. How does Arthur make it easy for Joan to continue to lie to him?

9. How does Joan use her personal fears and concerns within the plot of the novel she is writing?

10. Describe Joan's personality while in high school.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Joan's actions that show her as a woman who is independent but also submissive to the men in her life. When she leaves her double life behind, how does she begin to show that she is becoming more assertive?

Essay Topic 2

Does the ending of the novel suggest that Joan has some hope of retiring her former double life and becoming a person who enters into relationships with honesty? What does Joan's interaction with the reporter in the hospital suggest about how Joan has changed or not?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the character of Joan's father. What is her relationship with her father and what is his influence on her as a child?

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