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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The others agree to wait at the motel because
(a) They just want to have fun and drink beer.
(b) They know the narrator wants to get away from them.
(c) They want to avoid an emotional situation with the narrator.
(d) They are not welcome in the town.

2. When Paul sees the narrator
(a) He does not recognize her.
(b) He runs to greet her.
(c) He confronts her angrily.
(d) He denies having written her.

3. The narrator describes the lake as
(a) Faded and defaced.
(b) Green and inviting.
(c) A haze of tears and vomit.
(d) Blue and cool as redemption.

4. What is Bill Malmstrom's purpose in visiting the island?
(a) He wants to scare the narrator into leaving.
(b) He wants to search for the narrator's father.
(c) He wants to seize the land for the government.
(d) He wants to buy the narrator's property.

5. In school pictures, the narrator's face was always
(a) Serious and frowning.
(b) Front and center.
(c) Blurred or turned away.
(d) Smiling and happy.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who interrupts the narrator in the outhouse and why?

2. What does the narrator feel is her first mistake during her visit to the store?

3. What does the narrator find hanging from a tree?

4. What question does the narrator recall asking her husband on their wedding day?

5. The narrator's attitude toward pain--if it hurts invent a different pain--indicates

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the narrator's relationship with her former lover.

2. What change has occurred in the narrator's views on fishing and hunting?

3. What attitude does the narrator express about the emotions of others?

4. What does the narrator decide about being a victim?

5. How does the narrator now view her parents?

6. What does the dead heron represent for the narrator?

7. Why does the narrator destroy David's film?

8. Why does Joe's marriage proposal remind the narrator of her first wedding day?

9. What childhood memory interrupts the narrator's feeling of complicity in the heron's death?

10. How does the narrator seem to feel about returning to the town and her childhood home?

(see the answer keys)

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