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. What does the boy in “The River” say his name is (though it isn’t)?

2. Who helps Old Dudley up the stairs?

3. What is the profession of Mrs. Willerton’s main character Lot Motum?

4. Emery discovers what about the gorilla?

5. Who does Hazel Motes follow down the street?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is O’Connor’s message in “The River”?

2. How do the boys invade the farm, despite the widow asking them to leave in “A Circle in the Fire”?

3. Why does Rayber’s old barber call him a “mother hubbard”?

4. Why does Ruby dread Rufus’s arrival?

5. Who is Rabie?

6. Why is Hazel Motes reluctant to befriend Enoch Emery?

7. Why does Hazel Wickers keep thinking about his mother?

8. Why doesn’t the grandmother want to drive through Georgia in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”?

9. What happens at the end of “A Circle in the Fire”?

10. What does Mrs. Willerton wish that she had more time for?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Many stories in this collection have an unmarried mother or sister and a son or brother carrying for the man. In how many stories in this collection does the author use a widow and an unmarried son as her main characters? What do they represent?

Essay Topic 2

O’Connor includes a lot of description of the natural world in her writing. What do the detailed descriptions of skies, sunsets, top lines of trees, and clouds indicate about the author? How many sunsets are depicted with exceptional clarity?

Essay Topic 3

Mrs. Willerton in “The Crop” uses her fiction to escape into another reality. Analyze Mrs. Willerton’s fictional account to gain a sense of what she really wants in life? For example, what is suggested by Mrs. Willerton initially creating a mean unforgiving wife for Lot Motum? How does Mrs. Willerton come to his rescue? What is suggested by the crop loss and Lot Motum’s response?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 773 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample