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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. Why does Will go through the trouble of leaving such elaborate instructions for Lewis and Sutter to carry out?

2. Whose portrait towers above the men in the clubhouse at the golf course?

3. What did young Will think just before the gunshot hit him?

4. What happens to Will's father on the hunting trip?

5. What is Allison able to do at the auto shop that surprises her?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Will obsess over how many shots his father fired on the hunting trip they took together?

2. What does Allison talk to the man in the garage of Washau Motors about?

3. What information does Allison's notebook contain?

4. What kind of shady business proposition does Ewell McBee make to Will?

5. What makes Allison ask Will if he is still angry?

6. What makes Allison feel like she needs to move quickly to get the stove into the greenhouse?

7. What does Lewis think is wrong with Will?

8. What happens when Will enters the greenhouse on his second visit?

9. What is important about the hunting trip with his father that Will remembers during his golf game?

10. What happens when Will gets home from the Sunday golf game and sits in his garage?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The Second Coming is populated with a lot of single, older men. Discuss the role of the old men like Mr. Ryan, Mr. Arnold, and Father Weatherbee in the novel. What do you think these older men represent in the novel? Why are there so many of them? What happens to these old men in the end?

Essay Topic 2

Throughout the novel, the narrator's perspective changes. Discuss how Walker Percy uses narration to help shape his novel. Is it first person or third person narration? Who seems to be the main focus of the novel? How does the perspective shift? Is the narrator sympathetic to the main characters?

Essay Topic 3

Like many novels set in small Southern towns, in The Second Coming the characters are constantly concerned about how others perceive them. Choose three characters from the novel and write an essay about how each deals with the issue of how others perceive them.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 666 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample