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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. O'Connor says that it is not fair to demand that novelists be what kind of novelists at the end of "The Teaching of Literature"?

2. In what area of the United States do Catholic writers have the burden of regionalism to overcome?

3. O'Connor says the Catholic reader forgets that there is a similarity between the sentimental and what?

4. O'Connor says a society is understood by what?

5. What were the subjects called when O'Connor was in high school?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does O'Connor say about absolutes in fiction, particularly religious fiction?

2. Why might a Catholic writer have to include more violence in his work than he is comfortable with?

3. How does O'Connor respond to the idea that there is a lack of good Catholic writing in America?

4. What does O'Connor say to those who say that Catholics are too restrained by their rigorous Catholic education to write creatively?

5. What problem does O'Connor say Catholic writers face?

6. How did John Hersey defend his book "A Bell for Adano" in a letter to the Georgia state school superintendent?

7. What does O'Connor mean when she says that writers should heed the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas?

8. How does O'Connor say that fiction writers and English teachers have common ground?

9. Describe the God that O'Connor says she believes in.

10. What story does O'Connor tell at the beginning of "Catholic Novelists and Their Readers"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What do you think O'Connor means when she says Southerners write about freaks because they can still recognize them? What does she mean when she talks about the "whole man"? How does this tie into the idea that Southerners tend to be grotesque-style writers? What does she seem to mean when she uses the term "freak?"

Essay Topic 2

Explore the perspective used in this nonfiction work. How would O'Connor's lessons on writing be different if they were written from a third-person perspective, like they would be in a textbook? What could the reader gain from a less personal perspective? What is gained from the first-person perspective that O'Connor uses instead?

Essay Topic 3

Explore O'Connor's view of the short story. How does she say a short story is just like a novel? What does she say a short story requires? What are many short stories missing? Why do you think she holds the short story in such high esteem? What can it accomplish that a novel cannot?

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