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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. How many years older than Sufiya Zinobia is Omar Khayyam Shakil?

2. How many erratum slips does Bilquis write announcing the change of groom for Naveed's wedding?

3. By what name does Bilquis call Sufiya Zinobia?

4. Who does the ghost of Iskander Harappa quote to Raza Hyder?

5. Where is Sufiya Zinobia kept by Raza and Omar after being sedated by her husband?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Captain Talvar Ulhaq take great risk to steal Naveed Hyder from her arranged marriage to Haroun Harappa?

2. What two phrases constitute the motto of Raza's regime?

3. How does Iskander Harappa rise to power?

4. What is the consequence of Maulana Dawood's quest against the selling and eating of shellfish in Karachi?

5. What becomes of Bilquis in her latter years?

6. How does Iskander Harappa bring his fate down upon his head after being arrested and imprisoned in Bagheeragali?

7. Why does the Pakistani man in London, referred to by the narrator at the beginning of Chapter 7, murder his own daughter?

8. How is the crazed killing spree of Sufiya Zinobia discovered?

9. Why does the narrator include the anecdote about seeing a London performance of Danton's Death?

10. How does Arjumand Harappa choose to remember her father?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Examine, in a carefully thought-out analytical essay, the usage of the motif of narrative asides employed by the author throughout the book. What do these asides accomplish? How do they add to the story? In what regard does the author use them to the story's benefit? Do they serve any purpose beyond enhancing the imagery and method of the story's delivery?

Essay Topic 2

As a prominent female figure, Bilquis Hyder, always first hand to experience instability, reveals much about the position of women in Pakistani society as it is portrayed in Shame. How do the various positions into which Bilquis is put and the various attitudes she adopts throughout her life demonstrate the role of Pakistani women? What is significant about her physical appearance? What is significant about the manner in which she clothes herself throughout the story? What is significant about the inverted manner in which she is gradually clothed throughout her married life? What is her overall significance to the story?

Essay Topic 3

Compose an analytical essay that fully develops the role of women in the Pakistani society as it is portrayed in Salman Rushdie's Shame. How are they viewed as a whole? What particular roles do individual women fulfill within society? What are some examples of this from the story? In what ways are they abused or neglected? In what ways do the women of the novel nonetheless shape the course of events? What is the ultimate result of women consistently being pushed to the periphery of events by their domineering male counterparts?

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