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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. After the family rolls their car in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, what do the men in the passing car have?

2. Whom does Mrs. Willerton become in her own story?

3. What is Ruller pretending to be?

4. What major political movement is coming up in “The Barber”?

5. How old is General Sash?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why does Enoch steal the gorilla suit?

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

4. What does Enoch Emery’s daily routine consist of?

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

6. Though General Sash does not want to go to his granddaughter’s graduation, why does he agree to anyhow?

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

8. Why is it ironic that the young boy’s parents are going to the river to the baptisms in “The River”?

9. How does Mr. Shiflet convince the widow of his sincerity?

10. What does Old Dudley think about New York?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

O’Connor’s stories are rich with symbolic irony. How does O’Connor demonstrate this in “The River”?

Essay Topic 2

How does Flannery O'Connor use the physically grotesque to illustrate the beautiful? Discuss the meaning she might have implied with the use of the one-armed man, the club-footed delinquent, the retarded young woman, and the neglected boy who seeks heaven in the river.

Essay Topic 3

Religion

a. How does religion play a role in short stories in The Complete Stories?

b. What religious motifs arise again and again in O’Connor’s work?

(see the answer keys)

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