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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. From where is Frommer noted to hail?

2. Of which of the following did Mieczyś’s father approve?

3. What city’s weather is posited as useful for forecasting conditions at the sanatorium?

4. Who is the first to offer Willi condolences at the death of his wife?

5. What German word does Mieczyś note liking?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the epigraph say must be done with what cannot be explained?

2. What are the fates of Willi’s four wives?

3. How is the whistling of the witches’ mouths explained?

4. How does Mieczyś know the piano in his lodgings is used little?

5. To what does Mieczyś initially ascribe the strange sounds he hears from the attic of his lodgings?

6. Why is Mieczyś unable to read novels?

7. How do the narrators know that Mieczyś is wearing a fresh shirt collar when he is introduced?

8. What does Brehmer notice about tuberculosis that had been missed previously?

9. What features on the grave of Mieczyś’s mother?

10. What are the witches’ mouths to which Willi leads Mieczyś and his fellow-lodgers?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the novel, some characters are given but one name, while others are given first- and surnames, and still others are accorded names and titles. What significance, if any, accrues to patterns of naming in the novel? If no significance accrues, what purpose might be served by the patterns of naming in the novel? How does The Empusium bear as much out?

Essay Topic 2

A lack of formal sectional division in the novel obliges a fairly arbitrary breakdown of the text for purposes of study and discussion. How might the novel be sectioned off other than it currently is? Why might those divisions be appropriate, based on the text and its contexts of composition and reception?

Essay Topic 3

To what genre other than horror might The Empusium be considered to belong? What in the text supports that identification? How does it do so?

(see the answer keys)

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