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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 the description of the man who led the attack on the fire station?

2. When the Negro man goes to the back door and asks for Sarah, what happens?

3. When a reporter looks up Houdini to get his reaction to the escape, where is he found?

4. What has The Boy taken to doing now that Sarah is communicative?

5. What physical abnormality does Pierpont Morgan have?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Father decide to do to make up for the time he has not spent with The Boy?

2. Why does J. P. Morgan want to meet with Henry Ford?

3. How does Mother's and Father's relationship change in Atlantic City?

4. What causes Younger Brother to run out of the parlor one evening after dinner?

5. Why does Father return alone to New York, leaving the family in Atlantic City.

6. How do the police learn about the history of Coalhouse Walker, Jr.?

7. What does Sarah try to do to help Coalhouse?

8. What happens to Sarah at the rally?

9. Describe Morgan's buildings on Madison Avenue in Murray Hill.

10. After Coalhouse arranges for his gang to escape, what happens to him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Write about how Doctorow uses The Boy and The Girl to represent change in the novel. Perhaps because he is a young boy when the novel begins wearing sailor suits and grows into the beginnings of young manhood where he discovers girls, change is most noticeable in The Boy. When they meet in Atlantic City, neither of them recall looking eye-to-eye years ago on the street in New Rochelle. Tateh first becomes aware of The Girl's maturation on the train trip out of New York. Show how this growing up process works as a good benchmark for the passing of time in the novel.

Essay Topic 3

Write a paper comparing Evelyn Nesbit with notorious movie stars of the 20th century. A good comparison might be to Marilyn Monroe. Compare their beginnings, Evelyn's posing nude for a statue and Marilyn appearing nude in Playboy Magazine, their notoriety in the press, and their many romantic entanglements. Doctorow suggests that Evelyn is the model for all the show business women who followed her. This should be a fun paper to write.

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This section contains 774 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample