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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 was considered the main problem in the world prior to the triffids?

2. What does Walter Lucknor claim the plants are doing when they strike their three sticks against their base?

3. What happened to Bill as a child that caused curiosity about triffids?

4. What is the young woman's name?

5. What time does the clock chime, which indicates a problem to the narrator?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe why Bill finds it difficult at first to break the law, even for food.

2. Do you agree with Bill's statement at the end of Chapter Six that man is lost without his ability to see? Why or why not?

3. Describe the scene where the narrator first learns of the blindness that plagues mankind.

4. Explain why Bill decides to go to London at the beginning of Chapter Three?

5. Describe the circumstances that resulted in Bill's hospitalization.

6. Explain what the landlord at the end of chapter 1 plans on doing, and how.

7. Explain how the seeds of the triffid came to spread across the world, according to the story by Bill of Umberto Palanguez.

8. Explain why the Colonel and the others want to leave London?

9. Describe the walking style of a triffid.

10. Give a brief explanation of the various speculations pertaining to the coming of the triffids.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Light is used as a metaphor for hope, freedom, and security throughout the novel. In what ways does the author use this metaphor? How does he show what this symbol stands for? Choose one instance of the use of light as a symbol. Explain the situation. What are the characters doing? How is the symbol used? What is light symbolizing? Why did the author choose light as this symbol?

Essay Topic 2

There are several incidents of suicide in the novel. Choose from one of the following and describe, in detail, the circumstances behind the suicide, and your thoughts on the person's act. Were they smart to end their lives or was the act cowardly? What were their alternatives? What would you have done in their positions?

• The landlord of the tavern in Chapter One.

• The couple in Chapter Five.

• The young woman in Chapter Eight.

Essay Topic 3

The Day of The Triffids was written in 1951, after WWII. Do you think WWII had an influence on the themes in the novel? Why or why not? If so, what themes are present in the novel that lead you to believe so? If not, why do you think, then, that Wyndham references America as a saving country and the date the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (pg. 95)? Do you think there are threads of communism, socialism, the Cold War, and other WWII themes in the novel? How are those themes represented in the novel?

(see the answer keys)

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