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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. How does Bobby lose everything?

2. What year does Bobby die?

3. Where do the Ellenborgens live?

4. Whose work does the narrator still recall clearly after many years?

5. How many total teeth are pulled from the narrator's mouth throughout the story, De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Sandra so worried about Lionel when he runs away in Down at the Dinghy?

2. Why does the narrator lie in his lengthy application letter to the art school in Montreal?

3. How does the story, Down at the Dinghy, end?

4. Why does Arthur think his marriage isn't working?

5. What do the pickles, key chain and goggles tell us about Lionel?

6. Why does Lionel run away so often?

7. Why does the tea room likely suit the narrator as a place to spend his last few hours in the town rather than the Red Cross recreation room?

8. Why does the narrator and Bobby move back to New York nine years later?

9. Why does Esme's long and complicated letter soothe the narrator more than one from his family?

10. How does Boo Boo handle Lionel's habit of running away?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The wealthy and bored housewife character is written about in a couple of the short stories in Salinger's collection. Explore this character by comparing and contrasting the women. What do they have in common? Why is this a returning type of character in the collection?

Essay Topic 2

Coming of Age is a theme seen in a few of the stories, including The Laughing Man. Explore and discuss the theme and why it is used is more than one story. How is it used? Why does Salinger use a Coming of Age theme in several stories? How can any reader relate to this theme, especially your age group?

Essay Topic 3

Why is Nine Stories an important collection of short stories? What does it contribute to American literary history?

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