View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Dottie behave when she comes down with the flu?

2. On what does the former priest focus in his memoirs?

3. How does Fleur feel after this visit with Gray?

4. Who had visited Fleur's room while she was out dancing?

5. What does Solly Mendelsohn do for a living?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Wally suggest Fleur should do about her job, and how does she respond?

2. Fleur and takes Lady Edwina on regular Sunday afternoon walks. They are soon joined by one of her old friends. How are these relationships developing?

3. What does Fleur find unusual about Dottie when she visits Fleur after returning from Ireland?

4. How does recounting her adventures with the Autobiographical Association make Fleur feel about the differences between fiction and nonfiction?

5. Describe the relationship between Fleur and her lover, Leslie.

6. Describe Fleur's impressions of Sir Quentin Oliver upon their first meeting.

7. Fleur has a long phone conversation that day with Lady Clotilde, one of the Association members. What does she tell Fleur about Sir Quentin?

8. How does Dottie anger Fleur when discussing Warrender Chase in Chapter 3?

9. How had Fleur originally come up with the idea for her novel, Warrender Chase?

10. Why did Fleur bring her friends, Theo and Audrey, in to read the proofs of Warrender Chase for her?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The drug Dexedrine is used by Sir Quentin to control his group of "followers."

What do the members gain, or perceive to gain, from following Sir Quentin? Could he have gained their confidence without the drugs? What did Sir Quentin's Association members have in common that made them susceptible to someone like him, similar to the blind faith cult members place in their leaders?

Essay Topic 2

Muriel Spark intentionally leaves character motivation out of Loitering with Intent. Her main character, Fleur Talbot, discusses not disclosing Warrender Chase's motivation for his evil behavior, merely the effects of his evil actions.

Discuss the concept of motivation and why you think Spark doesn't focus on the motivation of her characters' actions. Do you think this affects the reader's impressions of the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Writers can describe the values of a culture or a society through characters who succeed in the culture, or conversely, are alienated from society. How do this novel's characters, through their success or alienation, reveal the 1949 London society's assumptions or moral values?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 902 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample