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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. Who is Mrs. Shortley?

2. What is the girl’s real name in “The Comforts of Home”?

3. Where does Calhoun find them when he arrives to visit someone in “The Partridge Festival”?

4. What or whom is Parker looking at?

5. How old is Thomas?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Asbury ask his mother to call for the priest?

2. Who is supposed to shoot the bull in “Greanleaf”?

3. Which character has the keenest sense of observation in “A Temple of the Holy Ghost”?

4. Why is Parker initially attracted to his wife?

5. Why does Thomas hide the gun in the guest room?

6. How does O’Connor get her title for “The Comforts of Home”?

7. What does Mrs. Turpin do in the waiting room?

8. Why does Tarwater destroy all evidence of his former life and move away?

9. What is Mrs. Tilman worried about?

10. In what capacity does the grandson in “The Artificial Nigger” lose some of his self-assuredness?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Many of O’Connor’s characters are similar. Which characters are the most similar? How do their life’s situations resemble one another?

Essay Topic 2

In “The Geranium”, Old Dudley longs for his friend, Rabie, back in his southern hometown. What is ironic about his longing for home? Why does it bother Old Dudley that the African-American neighbor calls him Old Timer? How are his feelings for the neighbor and his feelings for Rabie contradictory?

Essay Topic 3

Many of the settings in The Complete Stories take place on small farms and in small southern towns. Do you think Flannery O'Connor paints a realistic picture of life in a small town and on a farm? What about small-town southern people?

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