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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. What plea does Shaw's mother want him to make in court but he flatly refuses?

2. What is the newspaperman, Jacob Riis, writing about at this time?

3. What happened often when Freud was around Jung?

4. What was a popular type of entertainment show in those days?

5. What does Evelyn see that causes her to order the driver to stop the car?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Father's condition when he returns form the Arctic?

2. Explain how Harry K. Shaw gets to see Harry Houdini.

3. What are Tateh's plans for him and The Girl as they leave New York?

4. What does the Franklin Novelty Company do with Tateh's books?

5. What does The boy see Mother do in the back garden?

6. What infatuation comes over Mother's Younger brother?

7. How does Evelyn lose The Girl?

8. What is the gossip about Evelyn's disappearances to visit The Girl?

9. What causes Harry K. Shaw to propose marriage to Evelyn Nesbit?

10. Who are the famous psychologists who visit New York at this time and what is their reaction?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write your personal review of RAGTIME and make a recommendation for other readers. Write this paper as though you are a book reviewer for a large newspaper or national magazine. Be honest about what you liked or did not like about the book. [That it was required reading in class does not count as a reason to dislike the book.] Be specific when giving your reasons by quoting passages from the novel.

Essay Topic 2

Write a paper on child labor. Express your opinion about child labor at the turn of the 19th-20th century and in places in the world today. Perhaps Charles Dickens is the most famous novelist to address the issue of child labor. Doctorow describes child labor in America in the 1890s and early 1900s in two brief passages. One has to do with child abductions and sexual abuse and the other has to do with the reason manufacturers liked child labor. Your paper should use those examples and discuss the harmful effects on children when they are do devalued.

Essay Topic 3

Write a paper about class distinctions in the novel. Examine the fixation Americans had on Europeans and whether it still exists today. [Compare to America's fixation on the late Princess Diana.] Use the arrival of Freud and Young as one example and Mother's preference for the Europeans at Atlantic City as another. Show how that also influences Tateh to adopt the persona of Baron Ashkenazy.

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This section contains 655 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample