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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. What does Christmas eat while on the run?
(a) rotten fruit and hard corn
(b) berries
(c) cheese and bread
(d) nuts

2. Where does Christmas go when he escapes from jail and where he is eventually killed?
(a) The restaurant
(b) Hightower's house
(c) Miss Burden's house
(d) The sawmill

3. Why do the townspeople leave the old couple alone?
(a) Because the old couple has a contagious disease
(b) Because the old woman talks too much
(c) Because the old couple does not want to be bothered
(d) Because the man preaches to Negroes and acts crazy in public

4. Why does Lena move into the cabin?
(a) She thinks it is Lucas Burch's house.
(b) She does not want to return home.
(c) Her baby is due soon and she wants to give her child a home.
(d) She is tired and needs a place to rest.

5. The baby's first cry also has a strong emotional release for Byron. Why?
(a) The child will be another bastard born in a difficult time in the South.
(b) Byron's former wife had died during childbirth.
(c) He realizes that he has been in denial that Lena has borne another man's child.
(d) He knows that he has no way of repaying Hightower for his kindness.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Hightower ask Lena to do when he returns to the cabin later that day?

2. Who does Byron bring to Hightower's house?

3. What does Christmas do on the side without telling Miss Burden?

4. Why do the townspeople virtually ignore Miss Burden?

5. What does Hightower's grandfather wear during the Civil War?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why do the Negroes of Mottstown support Mr. Hines who preaches white supremacy in Negro churches?

2. New life has significance in more than one way in this chapter. Explain.

3. As Christmas runs to avoid the law, he stops at a cabin and trades shoes with a Negro woman. What is the significance of the traded shoes?

4. Why does Christmas feel he will be safe at Miss Burden's place?

5. How does Mrs. Hines indirectly cause the death of Christmas, her grandson?

6. How does Faulkner show that women are more realistic and more forgiving in this chapter?

7. Why does Percy Grimm castrate Christmas while he is still alive?

8. Why does Christmas refuse to marry Miss Burden and raise a family?

9. Explain the irony in Miss Burden's nearly nymphomaniac behavior?

10. What does Hightower mean when he says the fading afternoon light is audible?

(see the answer keys)

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