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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 Irene conclude that Brian and Clare are having an affair?

2. For more than a week, Helga remains in a state of

3. Irene attributes Brian's complete withdrawal to

4. Irene privately considers what it would be like if

5. As to Clare's motives, Irene is

Short Essay Questions

1. During a period while Clare is gone, is there peace in the Redfield home? Why, or why not?

2. What is odd about the initial meeting among Irene, Gertrude and Clare? Are these conversations typical among women friends? What, if anything, makes the visit among the three women unusual?

3. Hugh Wentworth, the white author, comes back into the story during the afternoon tea scene. What is Wentworth's role? Is he a true friend to Irene? To Clare?

4. What do we know about Clare Kendry from her letter to Irene? What do we know about her from this chapter?

5. What is it that has kept Clare from leaving her husband and living permanently in Harlem?

6. Clare attends the Negro League dance with Brian and Irene. What does the dance symbolize in the story? Why is Irene careful to arrange a ride home for Clare?

7. What role, if any, does Clare's husband play in the story so far? Is he a comforting presence? Why, or why not? Is he a likable character?

8. How did her religion help Helga through difficult times?

9. Speculate on why Clare is silent at the Redfield dinner table, but talkative and gregarious a parties with others. Does she have a split personality, or is she just shy at the Redfields'? How does Larsen let on what is going on without saying it?

10. What, exactly, does Irene fervently wish John Bellew could know? Why?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about the music in Harlem during the 1920s, including popular musicians and their audiences. Do some of the same venues still exist there? Does the traditional music of the 1920s still exist there? What permanent mark did early Harlem leave on music, if any?

Essay Topic 2

Write a biography, from what you can find through research, of Nella Larsen and her own experiences that contributed to her stories. Are her stories autobiographical? Where did she gain knowledge of the problems of being bi-racial? What impact, if any, did her writing have on Americans?

Essay Topic 3

What are the most outstanding differences in Helga Crane's presentation of herself in Denmark and in New York? Write about her transition from one facade to the other, and what she brought from one culture to the other. Did she blend in within any of the societal structures in which she chose to live? Why, or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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