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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. Who does Cropper lunch with to acquire more of Ash's items, since the current Lord Ash does not particularly like Cropper?

2. What does Roland say to Blackadder after the meeting?

3. Who does Val meet at the horse races?

4. What does Roland discover happened to his landlady?

5. What does Val say that she's not very good at?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do Maud and Roland react to Euan's phone call?

2. What are all the things Ellen puts in the box?

3. What does Roland start to do at the end of Chapter 26?

4. What happens at Sabine's house when Christabel disappears?

5. Describe Cropper's lectures.

6. What are Cropper's relationships with the Ash family like?

7. What is Ash's opinion on spiritualist mediums?

8. How does Val feel about her new relationship?

9. What does Beatrice Nest overhear?

10. What offer does Blackadder make to Roland?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discus the role of objects in the story, and how they are and are not invested with meaning.

1) What gives an object meaning? How do the letters that Roland finds have meaning, and why is the meaning only identified when Roland reads the letters?

2) How does context relate to meaning? Why can Maud only interpret Christabel's doll poem correctly in the context of Christabel's room? What other examples are there in the novel of context giving meaning to objects or words?

3) What meanings do the physical objects in Ash's box have? How are these meanings different for different people, in different contexts?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss understanding a text through an intermediary, such as Cropper's biography of Ash.

1) How does Cropper create a different reality of Ash, by imposing himself in Ash's story?

2) How does Maud interpret The Great Ventriloquist? How does she separate Cropper from Ash in what she reads? What meanings does the title The Great Ventriloquist take on in this context?

3) How do Blackadder's writings on Ash differ from Croppers? How does Blackadder try to keep his personal self out of his interpretive readings, and is this possible?

Essay Topic 3

In the novel, the characters are scholars who study two Victorian poets. Discuss the importance of poetry in the novel.

1) Why does Roland decide to write poems, and find a poetic voice, at the end of the novel? How is writing poetry different than studying and analyzing it?

2) What do poets accomplish with their poems in the novel? Who are the poems written for?

3) What causes poetry to persist over time in the novel? Why do the characters study poetry that is written far in the past?

(see the answer keys)

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