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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. Christmas is out late with his friends despite the fact that he knows that McEachern will punish him when he gets home. How will Christmas be punished?

2. What is the intention of the four boys?

3. Who did Lena live with in Doane's Mill?

4. In the morning, Christmas returns to the cabin and dresses in _____________________.

5. What does Christmas do with the answer to #77?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is McEachern's death symbolic in this chapter?

2. Why does Christmas think that his killing McEachern will make him seem heroic in Bobbie's eyes?

3. Why is Byron so skittish as he leads Lena through town to get her settled in a boardinghouse?

4. How does the dietician attempt to thwart disaster in the toothpaste incident?

5. What internal conflict does Christmas begin to experience this night?

6. How does the Hightower marriage eventually end?

7. Why are the people of Jefferson not sure that Reverend Hightower is interested in them?

8. Why does Byron regret telling Lena that the man in town named Joe Brown is the man she knows as Lucas Burch?

9. Why does Christmas sleep in the stables that night?

10. What are Byron Bunch's first impressions of Joe Christmas?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why does Byron assume that the stink coming from Hightower's house is that of goodness? Why can he not identify the odor as the stink of an unclean bachelor? Why does Faulkner use this imagery to drive home his points about the relationship between Byron and Hightower?

Essay Topic 2

Does Faulkner end the novel on a note of hope or the continuance of the futility of man's struggle to understand his existence? Explain

Essay Topic 3

Faulkner compares Joe Christmas to Jesus Christ which is a popular literary technique in Faulkner's time. Identify the ways in which Christmas and Christ have similarities. Do you think this is blasphemous? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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