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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. What happens when Dottie visited Fleur's room the evening after Fleur found her manuscript?

2. Fleur tells Sir Quentin that she knows he plagiarized her novel and plans to sue him. How does he respond?

3. Dottie finally realizes Fleur has stolen back the manuscript from her flat, and calls Fleur demanding to know how she got in. What does Fleur tell her?

4. When Lady Edwina realizes that her son has been up to no good, how does she react to Fleur?

5. In the novel's present day, Fleur lives in Paris. Who has just been there to visit her?

Short Essay Questions

1. Before Fleur leaves the flat, Lady Edwina gives her something in secret. When she reads it later, what does she find?

2. Fleur desperately wants to do what when she gets home with her manuscript? What does she do instead?

3. What does Fleur first think might be the problem with her novel when the publisher requests to meet with her in person?

4. How does Fleur react to her own novel as she goes through it, typing up additional copies?

5. Describe how at least one of the maxims Fleur remembers from childhood helps direct her actions as attempts to get her manuscript back.

6. When her novel is ultimately published, how does Fleur initially react?

7. Fleur's job at the Association has changed by Chapter 7. What are her duties now?

8. What realization does Fleur come to regarding her novel, Warrender Chase, when Sir Quentin calls her into his office in Chapter 7?

9. As Fleur goes to bed the night after the meeting with the publisher, about what can she not stop thinking ?

10. What was it that Fleur scolded herself when she determined who had likely stolen the manuscript from her room?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Examine, through your impressions from Loitering with Intent, Muriel Spark's perspective on religion. The book includes at least three hints of her specific opinions about religion. Often, writers create metaphors through parallels - what does she use as a parallel to organized religion, and how does it describe her thoughts on the matter?

Essay Topic 2

Describe Fleur Talbot as "character type," as she does with Beryl Tims and Dottie, the "English Roses." What would her character type be named? Who else might fit into this character type - another literary character, someone in a movie, someone from your life? Why? How does that person compare to Fleur?

Essay Topic 3

While some confuse the idea of conflict with that of violence, this novel portrays the former with none of the latter. Until Lady Gilbert takes her own life, no one is physically harmed in the novel. Discuss the various conflicts that arise in the story, the antagonist and protagonist of each, and how each smaller conflict affects the larger conflict. Is there a clear winner in the end?

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