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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 had Constant’s role been in Haiti, before he moved to the U.S.?

2. What do Dany and Michel purchase, to make Eric’s wife more at home?

3. What is Anne’s favorite Christmas song?

4. How old is Nadine?

5. Where have Anne and her husband gone to get Ka for this Christmas mass?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why are the 60 seconds at midnight during the Christmas mass Anne’s favorite minute of the year?

2. What is Nadine’s relationship with her co-workers like?

3. How does Ka’s mother answer when Ka asks her how she can love him?

4. What does Eric’s wife do while he is at work?

5. How did Eric and his wife twist the carnival tradition related to married people?

6. How have Anne and her husband camouflaged their old life in Haiti, now that they are in New York?

7. In how many ways does the number seven resonate for Eric at the start of the second chapter, titled “Seven”?

8. How does the narrator characterize Anne’s religiosity?

9. What is Nadine Osnac’s relationship with her parents like, at the beginning of the chapter titled “Water Child”?

10. How does Nadine’s call with her parents go?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is missing from this book? What should have been covered or presented that was not? What is the effect of this absence? Describe an element that ought to have been covered, and explain why it would have made the book stronger.

Essay Topic 2

The Dew Breaker does not end in confrontation or justice—Does the book propose terms by which justice might be accomplished? Are there characters in the book who accomplish justice in their way? What would it take for these characters to get justice? What would it take for you, as the reader, to feel the book led to some kind of closure?

Essay Topic 3

Is The Dew Breaker a novel or a collection of interconnected short stories? How would you define either genre, and where do you see evidence that The Dew Breaker satisfies that definition? How do you account for contrary evidence in the book’s structure?

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