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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. Who does Félicité find while she is in Trouville?

2. How is Mme. Aubain's husband described?

3. Who in Félicité's family always kept out of sight?

4. How does Paul make the journey to Tocqueville?

5. How are the easy chairs in the living room upholstered?

Short Essay Questions

1. Do you think that Félicité's final vision is religious or delusional? Does it matter?

2. Why do you think the narrator conceals the real cause of Loulou's death?

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

4. How does Flaubert choose to describe the procession of Corpus Christi and Félicité's death? What affect does this have?

5. Describe the scene with the bull and explain why you think it is important.

6. How is it significant that the parrot is being eaten by maggots, but Félicité neither knows nor cares?

7. What does the narrator say about Félicité's age and appearance and why might this be an important detail?

8. How does Félicité begin to confuse or associate the parrot with the Holy Spirit?

9. How do Mme. Aubain and Félicité's reactions to Virginie's departure differ from each other?

10. What objects stand out in Félicité's collection of objects and what relationships can you find between them?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider Félicité's relationship with her sister and her sister's family. Taking into account both their treatment of her and hers of them, what do Félicité's relationships with her family tell us about her character? Be sure to include her relationships with both Victor and her sister.

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

What is the symbolic significance of the parrot? Review the parrots role in the story and create an argument that describes how the parrot functions symbolically in "A Simple Heart." As always, be sure to include specific examples from the text to support your argument.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,600 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample