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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 is Ruth doing when John wakes up at the beginning of Chapter 7?

2. What does Fay ask John at the very beginning of Chapter 9?

3. In Chapter 8, What does Fay pointedly ask John?

4. What is Carl doing when John asks him to help with the deck in Chapter 12?

5. Who does Taft fear is dead in Chapter 8?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where does John go to recuperate in Chapter 12?

2. How does John anger Ruth at the beginning of Chapter 7?

3. Why does Taft ask his children to stay home Friday night?

4. How do Ruth, Fay and Cyndi gang up on John at the beginning of Chapter 9?

5. How does Carl explain his arrest in Chapter 9?

6. What difficulty do John and Fay face in bailing Carl out in Chapter?

7. What assessment does the mechanic in Chapter 10 make regarding Taft's car?

8. What does Wallace tell John about Carl in Chapter 8?

9. How does Taft die in Chapter 12?

10. When does Fay surprise Taft in Chapter 10?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the theme of innocence and experience in the novel, focusing on the characters of Fay and Carl Taft. How are the characters unaware of danger and vice before the death of their father? What silly and foolish mistakes do they make before this tragedy? How do these follies transform into dangerous and destructive activities after Taft's death? Why do these children become less heedful of their own safety after they lose a parent?

Essay Topic 2

One of the central plotlines of the novel is the relationship between John Nickel and John Taft. This relationship is odd in that it does not abandon itself to the sexual tension around it. Write a three-part essay, analyzing this relationship:

Part 1) What is John Nickel's initial impression of Fay Taft, and why does he decide to bring her on to staff at Muddy's? Discuss how the relationship between Fay and John develops in the first weeks. How does it shift on the night that Carl overdoses?

Part 2) Discuss how John and Fay's impromptu trip to Shiloh helps develop the relationship between them. Why do they go? What is each character looking for from the other in these passages? What act of tenderness occurs at the end of the night?

Part 3) How does the relationship between John and Fay become a romantic relationship? What events help catalyze this shift? What kind of reaction does this receive from those around them, and how does the romantic entanglement effectively end?

Essay Topic 3

John Nickel is a deeply sympathetic character, but his self-destructive tendencies come into view whenever he becomes sexually entangled with a woman. Write an essay about three such of these entanglements. How does each begin and how does each develop? What personal weaknesses do these trysts reveal in John? What mental anguish do they unearth? Does John overcome this anguish by the end of the novel? If so, how?

Part 1) Marion

Part 2) Ruth

Part 3) Fay

(see the answer keys)

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