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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 is the only one who knows that Byron drives all night on Saturdays in order to conduct the choir at a distant country church and then drive home in time to go to work on Mondays?

2. What does Christmas do when he leaves the house?

3. Where do Christmas and Brown live?

4. Who is Bobbie?

5. Where does Lena go the next morning?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Christmas lose control when he sees Bobbie with another man?

2. Two men give Lena a ride in their wagon but one of them is especially concerned about what people might say. What misgivings do the men have about the situation?

3. What are the details of the murder as told by Byron in this chapter?

4. Why has Lena left her home in Alabama?

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

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

7. Why is Christmas attracted to Bobbie?

8. Why does Christmas know that something is going to happen to him on this night?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Another literary technique Faulkner uses is to give a voice to the towns of Jefferson and Mottstown. Why does Faulkner do this? How can one voice encompass the opinions and feelings of all the people in a town? What would the reader not know if these voices were not apparent in the story?

Essay Topic 2

Faulkner uses the literary technique of flashback in this novel. Note the flashback instances and describe them briefly. What is the purpose of using this technique? What do they provide the reader? What would the reader not know about this story if the flashbacks were not included?

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?

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