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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. Which of the following does Avey do as the ship sets sail to Carriacou?

2. What does Avey recall about Jerome's face as he lay in his casket?

3. What does Avey recall envisioning binding the group members of her girlhood trips?

4. What does Avey do after her body has finished its purge?

5. What startles Avey awake?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the sermon that Avey recalls hearing as a little girl?

2. How does Avey meet Lebert Joseph?

3. Describe how Avey's massage becomes almost like a sacred ritual in renewing her in body and spirit.

4. What does Avey feel her family exchanged for its affluence?

5. What is Avey doing in Chapter 4 at the same time she was supposed to be flying back to America?

6. What does Avey mean when she says that her life is a tabula rasa?

7. What did the preacher say was the purpose of the sermon about the risen Christ?

8. In what ways is Avey's meltdown at the hotel a clearing of the path for her spiritually?

9. How does the present day Avey mirror what the little girl Avey was experiencing in the dream?

10. What does Lebert regard Avey as and how does he convince her to go to the island with him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The role of women is a main topic addressed in this story. Explain the theme that extends through all the female characters. What is the presumed role of women in America during the 1960s and 1970s? Explain by giving examples.

Essay Topic 2

Create a brief character study of Avey. What does she look like? What are her positive personality traits? What are some of her negative characteristics? What are her hopes and fears? What motivates her, if anything, at this point in her life?

Essay Topic 3

Why did Marshall choose to use the omniscient narrator perspective for the novel? What does this point of view entail? What do you know about the characters and the plot line that you would not know from a different point of view?

(see the answer keys)

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