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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. Why doesn't Ellen show Ash what Christabel has sent?

2. Where do Maud, Roland, Euan, Val, and Toby decide the letters should go?

3. What has Val believed about Roland and Maud, until she learns more at the horse race?

4. What color is Melusine's hair?

5. What does Christabel ask for when she first comes to Sabine's home?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the medium in the poem introduce her practices to the apprentice?

2. What offer does Blackadder make to Roland?

3. How does Blackadder feel about his work?

4. Describe Cropper's lectures.

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

6. What does the knight tell Melusine when he first sees her?

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

8. What does Maud fear in relationships?

9. How does the subject of Christabel and Ash's letters come up at the race track?

10. What does Beatrice Nest overhear?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss communication in the novel.

1) How does literature and poetry function as communication in the novel? How does a reader or scholar know that he or she is communicating with an author like Ash or LaMotte?

2) How do the characters communicate with each other? How do they often not communicate, and exist at cross-purposes with each other?

3) How does communication build knowledge in the novel?

Essay Topic 2

The novel follows two parallel stories, one in the past and one in the present. Discuss the relationship of the past and the present in the novel.

1) How is communication possible between the past and the present?

2) What drives the characters to try to understand the past? Why does Roland study the past?

3) What do parallels between the past and the present say about human experience?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the structure of the novel.

1) Why and how does the novel use letters, excerpts of poems, and journal entries in its telling of the story?

2) How does the novel gradually reveal the story of Ash and Maud?

3) How do the characters of Roland and Maud change over the course of the novel?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 661 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample