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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 is Anne’s favorite Christmas song?

2. When does Anne go up to the man her daughter thought was Emmanuel Constant?

3. What quality does mistletoe have, according to Anne?

4. What has Eric’s wife brought to the U.S. that does not make it through customs?

5. How many microcassettes with Eric’s messages has Nadine added to her altar?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. What political event captivates Eric’s wife during her first week in New York?

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

6. How is the ending of "Water Child" chapter similar to themes in The Book of the Dead?

7. Whose perspective is the "The Book of Miracles" chapter written from, and when is it set?

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

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

10. What causes Nadine to call her parents?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 947 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample