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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 is Evelyn Nesbit doing before her husband's trial?

2. What was the physical condition of the rich prior to William Howard Taft becoming President?

3. What does Houdini do in Germany?

4. What does Evelyn hope for in her husband's trial?

5. Where do Tateh and The Girl go to warm up after spending the night in the train station?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does The Boy think bronze statues are?

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

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

4. What becomes the fashion among the rich in turn of the century America?

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

6. What is Evelyn doing with Younger Brother after Tateh and The girl leave?

7. How is Father sent off on his trip with the Perry expedition to the North Pole?

8. Why does socialite Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish bring Houdini and circus freaks to her house?

9. How does Evelyn lose The Girl?

10. What does The Boy recover from the trash?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a paper about the transformation of Tateh in the novel from the time he was scandalized by his wife and Evelyn until he romps on the beach in Atlantic City. Discuss what you think makes the transformation. Is there a tendency for the poor to be judgmental of the morals of the rich? If so, why? How does affluence change a persons attitude toward all things in society? What are the good and bad points of such changes?

Essay Topic 2

Write about Harry Houdini's fixation on finding a way to communicate with his dead mother. The attachment of Houdini to his mother is a documented fact. He also spent the rest of his life looking for someone who could make contact with the dead. In the process he became an authority on fakes and charlatans who claimed special powers to channel the dead. In your paper, explain why you think Doctorow used Houdini as a major character in the book? Point out the societal changes that were happening at that time that Houdini symbolizes.

Essay Topic 3

Look up information of Theodore Dreiser and write about his impact on the American novel. It is interesting that Doctorow chooses Dreiser to put in his book. It might be a message about his own feelings about book critics. Dreiser was never recognized in his own time for the quality of his novels. Perhaps his most famous novel, AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY, was made into a movie in the 1950s called A PLACE IN THE SUN. What is your opinion about why Doctorow chose this novelist to include briefly in RAGTIME.

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