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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 does Ellen Cherry want to paint after she finishes painting mountains?
2. What event keeps being repeated at the I & I?
3. What does Boomer look for that he then realizes he and Ellen Cherry leave in the cave?
4. When Boomer Petway is in high school, he is the best at what?
5. What is Turn Around Norman's trick?
Short Essay Questions
1. What do you think is significant about the fact that Boomer and Ellen Cherry wake up Painted Stick and Conch Shell?
2. When Buddy goes to answer a knock at his door, he has an erection from reading about a Christian wife who goes to bed with her make-up on. What does this incident tell us about Buddy?
3. One of Abu Hadee's favorite quotes is "A shadow does not belong to the object that casts it." What do you think of the significance of this? How does it relate to the rest of the novel so far?
4. Why does Boomer turn an airstream into a Turkey?
5. Why do you think that Ellen Cherry covers a nude portrait of Boomer with tongues?
6. Can 'o Beans says that "imprecise speech is one of the major causes of mental illness in human beings." What do you think is meant by this?
7. What do we learn about Buddy and Verlin when they forcefully remove Ellen Cherry from her art class?
8. What does Ellen Cherry mean when she says that "'political art' is a contradiction in terms"?
9. What do you think Robbins is saying by personifying objects and having them secretly move?
10. The first line in this section is "the pendulum swung yet again." It is referring to Can 'o Beans account of religious history. What does this suggest about religion?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
The question is raised early on by Ellen Cherry whether a person can really be passionate about two things at once. Can she, for example, be both an artist and a wife? Where do you think Robbins (or Ellen Cherry) ultimately falls on this question? State your position and use at least three supporting examples to argue it.
Essay Topic 2
All the objects, except Can 'o Beans, are given a gender. Provide an analysis of the objects in terms of gender and consider why Can 'o Beans is left genderless. What qualities do each object represent? Are these characteristics typically associated with the gender that object is assigned?
Essay Topic 3
Consider where all the objects end up. Painted Stick and Conch Shell are hiding and waiting for the third temple. Can 'o Beans is left to rust. Spoon is picked up by Boomer and returned to Ellen Cherry. Dirty Sock is still stuck in the Manhattan cathedral. Do their final locations have some kind of symbolic significance? How is each location and/or condition in which the objects are left meaningful in the context of the novel's themes?
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This section contains 1,330 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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