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| Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. In "The Blessing Tobacco," whom does David's grandmother mistake him for?
2. In "Food for the Common Cold," what gift has David recently been given by his father?
3. What technique is employed when David says that "the river was still frozen, ice shining white-blue under a full moon" (1)?
4. Why is Fellis feeling so sick?
5. In "Get Me Some Medicine," when the lights go on in the bar, what does David notice?
Short Essay Questions
1. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," what is the rhetorical purpose of the story's ambiguous ending?
2. In "Burn," why was David's first trip into town to get marijuana unsuccessful?
3. In "Food for the Common Cold," what is the difference between the way the adult narrator David and the child David in the story see the mood in the household during the week that Frick is gone?
4. In "The Blessing Tobacco," what is the rhetorical function of the passage where David considers whom he should "smoke like" (108)?
5. In "Burn," what point about economic realities on the reservation does David make as he steps in the boot prints along the sidewalk on his way home?
6. In "The Blessing Tobacco," what does David try over and over to do on the way home from his grandmother's house, and what is the significance of this?
7. Which details does Talty include in "In a Jar" that make clear to the reader that David's life before the reservation did not include many other Native people?
8. In "Burn," what does the reservation doctor tell David he is ineligible for, and what does David see this as an example of?
9. In "Burn," how dis Fellis end up stuck in the snow?
10. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," how does David use the layout of the hospital as a metaphor for the human mind?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Now that you have finished the collection and know more about how David's life turns out, which kind of caterpillar do you think he is--the kind that gets crushed on the road, or the kind that survives, transcends, and becomes a butterfly? What does this symbolism have to do with other ideas in the text about agency and circumstance? What does it have to do with the importance of setting? Write an essay in which you place the caterpillar symbolism of "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars" into the larger context of the story collection as a whole. Consider how this symbolism supports thematic motifs found elsewhere in the text and how later stories impact your understanding of this symbolism. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text. Cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.
Essay Topic 2
In interviews, Talty has said that what drives and connects the stories in this collection is the question "What happened to David"? How does the structure of this collection create suspense by presenting this question and then gradually offering clues? What would the collection lose by presenting the stories chronologically? Write an essay in which you analyze the structure of Night of the Living Rez, showing how the ordering of stories creates tension by juxtaposing two contrasting versions of David: the young David who is easy to empathize with and the older David whose dissolution puzzles and disturbs the reader. Support your analysis with evidence drawn from throughout the collection, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.
Essay Topic 3
How does the physical business with coffee in the story "Safe Harbor" convey David's inability to find comfort in the world? Why does it matter that he is having coffee with his mother in this story? How does coffee figure into the story's conclusion? What are some of the associations that a reader might be expected to bring to the idea of coffee--what age are the people who generally drink it, how is it supposed to make them feel, and so on? Write an essay that describes the role that coffee plays in the story and analyzes its significance. Support your assertions with evidence from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.
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This section contains 1,361 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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