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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 are the Red Committee members doing during their meeting?

2. What does the hand of the professor tighten upon as he encounters Heat for the first time?

3. The bomb The Professor carries on his person at all times is designed to kill anyone within how many feet of him?

4. In which year does the actual incident on which this novel is based take place?

5. Although initially insisting he works independently, the professor eventually confesses that he recently had sold what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Mr. Verloc's attitude toward Mrs. Verloc's lone sibling?

2. How is Michaelis described?

3. What happens when Mr. Verloc is going around putting out the lights in the house after the Red Committee's meeting and he encounters his wife's sibling watching him?

4. How does Ossipon learn it was Mr. Verloc who obtained explosives from the professor, and what is his reaction?

5. How does Winnie's mother views her daughter's romance with the young butcher?

6. Why is it Mr. Verloc is able to leave his business in the hands of his brother-in-law in the morning?

7. Describe the task undertaken by Chief Inspector Heat and what he views as a critical item he locates?

8. Why was Michaelis sent to prison?

9. What is Ossipon's view of Mrs. Verloc's sibling?

10. What description of the explosive device he carries on his person does the professor provide Ossipon?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Toodles, the secretary of state's private secretary, only appears in two chapters. He is initially introduced in Chapter 7, when the assistant commissioner first reports to the secretary of state, and again in Chapter 10, when the assistant commissioner returns unexpectedly early to make his report to the secretary of state. Examine how the author uses this new character, Toodles, and both encounters he has with the assistant commissioner in relaying his tale.

Essay Topic 2

Conrad establishes scenes by laying out in great detail the stage setting upon which the scene will take place. For instance, in Chapter 1 he provides an extensive description of the front window and entrance to the Verloc's pornography shop. In Chapter 4 he delivers a virtual snapshot of the Silenus beer-hall where Ossipon encounters the professor. Discuss how Conrad uses this technique to establish settings in which scenes take place.

Essay Topic 3

Some of the characters in Conrad's novel are not whom they initially seem to be. Some are harder than they might have at first appeared, others not quite as cold or callous. Take four characters and examine how they are different by the end of the tale than at first encountered. Describe the individual's outlook and view of the world and what motivates them to change.

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