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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Of Deborah, the narrator says in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “Perhaps the weak, flaccid wretch had some stimulant in her pale life to keep her up—some love or hope, it might be, or urgent need. When that stimulant was gone, she would take to” what?
(a) Lacquer
(b) Opium
(c) The river
(d) Whiskey

2. Of the sculpture discovered by the visitors at the iron mill in “Life in the Iron Mills,” the narrator says, “There was not one line of beauty or grace in it: a nude woman’s form, muscular, grown coarse with labor, the powerful limbs instinct with some one poignant” what?
(a) Plea
(b) Belief
(c) Longing
(d) Pregnancy

3. Mitchell claims in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “Reform is born of need, not” what?
(a) Criticism
(b) Pity
(c) Empathy
(d) Poverty

4. How is Deborah related to Hugh Wolfe in “Life in the Iron Mills”?
(a) She’s his daughter
(b) She’s his sister
(c) She’s his cousin
(d) She’s his aunt

5. Of Hugh Wolfe, the narrator says in “Life in the Iron Mills,” “Yet he was kind to her: it was his nature to be kind, even to the very” what?
(a) Police that hold him down
(b) Dog that bit him
(c) Beggars in the streets
(d) Rats that swarmed the cellar

Short Answer Questions

1. What Biblical figure, the son of Isaac, does the narrator denote having been deprived of his birthright in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

2. “Life in the Iron Mills” is regarded by many academics as the beginning of what movement in American literature?

3. What is the name of the overseer that comes with the visiting men to the mill in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

4. The narrator states in the beginning of “Life in the Iron Mills,” “The idiosyncrasy of this town is” what?

5. What word from “Life in the Iron Mills” means given or characterized by joking?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens to Deborah at the end of “Life in the Iron Mills”? What does the narrator reveal at the end of the story?

2. What is Deb doing when her character is first introduced in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

3. When did Rebecca Harding Davis write “Life in the Iron Mills”? Who published it?

4. How does the author of “A Biographical Interpretation” depict Rebecca Harding Davis’s relationship with her first publisher?

5. What do the visitors at the mill tell Hugh Wolfe regarding his future as an artist in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

6. What exchange takes place between Deborah and the Quaker woman at the jail in “Life in the Iron Mills”?

7. What legacy did Rebecca Harding Davis leave behind, according to the author of “A Biographical Interpretation”?

8. Where did Rebecca Harding Davis grow up, according to the author of “A Biographical Interpretation”? How is her family described?

9. What does Deb attempt to give Hugh after they return home from the mill in “Life in the Iron Mills”? How does Hugh respond?

10. How is Hugh’s death described in “Life in the Iron Mills”? How does Hugh die?

(see the answer keys)

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