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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 decoration is prominent in Mme. Aubain's bedroom?

2. Where is Félicité's bedroom?

3. What is unusual about the floors in Mme. Aubain's house?

4. What is Félicité's first job as a girl?

5. What does Mme. Aubain think of Félicité's family?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the irony of Félicité's long search for Loulou?

2. Why do you think Mme. Aubain shakes slightly when she sees Félicité respond to the news of her nephew's death?

3. How does Mme. Aubain respond to Félicité's reunion with her lost sister?

4. Why is it significant that Félicité sleeps in her chair in front of the fire?

5. Do you think it's significant that Félicité misses Virginie's death because she goes back to lock up in case of thieves?

6. Why does Mme. Simon nurse Félicité as she is dying?

7. Why do you think Flaubert has Félicité run all the way to say goodbye to Victor only to miss him at the last?

8. Félicité's service for Mme. Aubain is described with some detail. What kind of an impression does Félicité's service give of Mme. Aubain?

9. On the way to Trouville, Félicité overhears Liebard talking about the woman that Theodore left her to marry, but she does not hear the end of the story. What, if any, function does this have in the story?

10. Does Victor seem to genuinely care for Félicité or is he only interested in taking things from her?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the tone of the narrator in this story. Does the narrative guide your interpretations of events or is it a neutral voice? If you argue that it does, how? If you argue that it doesn't, how does it avoid commentary?

Essay Topic 2

Consider the relationship between Félicité and Mme. Aubain. The culminating event in their relationship is, of course, the moment of embrace and equality, but several other things happen between them that helps to place each of them in a certain relationship to the world around them. Write an essay that considers the way that Félicité and Mme. Aubain's relationship helps to ground each of them in a clear relationship to their world. Some details you might want to look at are Mme. Aubain's treatment of Félicité's actual family and Félicité's sense that it was wrong for Mme. Aubain to die before she did.

Essay Topic 3

Compare and contrast Virginie and Victor. Félicité considers them to share the same place in her heart. What similarities of character and situation contribute to this sense for the reader? What differences distinguish them?

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