View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Foyle bypass Kempsey's sympathetic block?

2. Where do the atomic bombs which strike in the proximity of the Presteign mansion come from?

3. Who is Angelo Poggi?

4. Who is Rodg Kempsey?

5. Who are the Jack-jaunters?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the nature of the small slugs Foyle sent around the world as revealed in Chapter 15?

2. How does Robin assist Foyle in his role as Geoffrey Fourmyle?

3. How does Foyle find out about Lindsey Joyce, and what does he learn about Joyce at the end of Chapter 12?

4. What does Olivia Presteign tell her father about Foyle that stuns him?

5. What does Robin offer Foyle after the New Year's Eve bombardment, and what is his response?

6. Describe, in a couple of sentences, the nature of the first Solar War as explained in Chapter 8.

7. What is Y'ang-Yeovil's role on the Spanish Steps?

8. What proposition does Foyle make Robin after her suicide attempt, and what is her response?

9. Describe Analogue and how and why it is used.

10. Who does Fourmyle see from the Gouffre Martel at Presteign's New Year's Eve party, and what is his response upon seeing this individual?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Foyle has to deal not only with his external physical image, but also his external image as it is perceived by others. Describe his transition from Gully Foyle, uneducated merchant marine, to Geoffrey Fourmyle, wealthy buffoon. Discuss how this transition helps him hide his obsession. Describe, too, how Robin Wednesbury complements him in the areas in which he is weak.

Essay Topic 2

In the last two chapters of the book, author Bester basically throws convention to the wind and attempts to describe what happens with Foyle in hyperbolic language and graphic representations of what is fundamentally indescribable. Discuss Bester's use of these tools, how effective you felt they were, and share an alternate way of communicating the same truths without using the same conventions Bester did.

Essay Topic 3

PyrE is what Alfred Hitchcock used to call the "McGuffin," that one item in a story that all the characters seek, and upon which much of the plot pivots. While PryE is on its surface an explosive, it is, in the context of the novel, much more. Discuss the symbolic nature of PyrE, what it might represent on an allegorical level, and the significance of how it is detonated by the thought and the will. Consider both the thought and the will as characters in the book, and the role these abstract notions play.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 768 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample