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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. In "In a Jar," where do David and Paige go with their grandmother?

2. What technique is used when David hears the sound of a man moaning and he says "with my cold ear I followed it" (2)?

3. In "Get Me Some Medicine," what does David say he and Fellis usually use for gambling chips?

4. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," what movie are Fellis and David supposed to return?

5. In "Food for the Common Cold," how old is David?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "Burn," what does the reservation doctor tell David he is ineligible for, and what does David see this as an example of?

2. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," how does David use the layout of the hospital as a metaphor for the human mind?

3. 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?

4. In "Food for the Common Cold," what are David's mother's and David's grandmother's opposing opinions about telling Frick about the hysterectomy?

5. In "The Blessing Tobacco," what is the rhetorical function of the passage where David considers whom he should "smoke like" (108)?

6. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," what does David point to as the beginning of the breakdown in his relationship with Tabitha?

7. In "In a Field of Stray Caterpillars," what is the rhetorical purpose of the story's ambiguous ending?

8. In "In a Jar," what is implied to have happened to Paige at the end of the story?

9. In "Burn," why was David's first trip into town to get marijuana unsuccessful?

10. 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?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What distinction is David drawing in "Earth, Speak" when he says that his mother "spoke to to [him]--not to [his] body"? (221) How does this distinction explain why, even after he is physically cured of his methadone addiction, he returns to Ralph's sweat lodge to participate in a ceremony with Ralph? What belief about his addiction is David expressing in this story? Write an essay in which you analyze the relationship between body and mind that David is proposing in this story and how it relates to his addiction and eventual recovery. Support your assertions with evidence from throughout the story, citing 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

You have already spent some time considering how the title "Half-Life" relates to the motif of sleep and unconsciousness. David is in many ways "half-alive" in this story. But the term "half-life" generally is used to refer to the decay rate of substances--radioactive elements, medications, and so on. How is this additional meaning related to David's drug-induced somnambulism? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about what might be "decaying" in David or in his life and show how this is related to the larger motif of "sleepwalking" through life. Support your assertions with evidence from throughout the story, citing any quoted evidence in MLA format.

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