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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. How does Ka explain to Gabrielle Fonteneau that she does not have the sculpture?

2. What does the narrator say Eric’s wife smells like?

3. How much weight has Anne’s husband lost since moving to the U.S.?

4. How long has it been since Eric has seen his wife, at the beginning of the "Seven" chapter?

5. What is Nadine’s reputation on the ward where she works?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the significance of Ka’s name?

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

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

4. What emergency is Nadine called in to resolve in Ms. Hinds’ room?

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

6. What is the occasion that Eric’s wife coming to New York?

7. What causes Nadine to call her parents?

8. What unlikely story is the main character of the "The Book of Miracles" chapter trying to get her family to believe?

9. What does Eric mean to Nadine now?

10. How do Ka and her father explain to Mrs. Fontaneau that the sculpture is gone?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Writing and speaking are prominent themes in The Dew Breaker, as are being silent or losing the ability to speak. How do events silence people in The Dew Breaker, and how do characters regain their voices? Is the novel itself a character in the novel—insofar as the narrator’s third-person omniscient perspective provides the characters themselves with the insight or articulation they crave? What does the novel itself ultimately say for them?

Essay Topic 2

Identify the most important plot points in The Dew Breaker. What is at stake in each of these moments? What possibilities do these moments present, and how are those possibilities channeled into specific actions or events? How does the plot chart its course among other alternative or possible plots?

Essay Topic 3

What role do superstition and religion play in The Dew Breaker? Who is moved by them, and how are they moved? Who is not moved by them, and how does the immunity, such as it is, serve as either an advantage or disadvantage? What can you say about Danticat’s approach to superstition and religion in The Dew Breaker?

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This section contains 1,028 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample