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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 the relationship between Master James and Barley?

2. According to Part Two, Chapter 25, what is the next part of Paul’s story?

3. What does Paul hope to find by carefully reading the packet of information Rossi gave him?

4. Where is the narrator to go after her father disappears?

5. What decade does the story return to in Part One, Chapter 23?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does the narrator read the fictional account of Dracula in Bram Stoker’s novel?

2. Why are Rossi’s letters addressed to “my dear and unfortunate successor”?

3. What does Paul think of the monastery at Les Pyrenees-Orientales? How do you know?

4. Explain the relationship between Rossi and Paul.

5. What is mysterious about the green book that is in Paul’s possession, according to Part One, Chapter 2?

6. Explain Rossi’s travels as described in his letter in Part One, Chapter 9.

7. Explain what prompts Paul to tell the narrator about events from his past.

8. Why does Rossi go to America? What does he learn there?

9. Explain who the narrator is in The Historian. What story is she telling?

10. How does Rossi react to Hedges’s death? What does this reveal about Rossi?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Define characterization. Identify and define each type of characterization, and give at least one example of each from the story.

Essay Topic 2

Explain Freytag’s Pyramid. Identify the elements of Freytag’s Pyramid and give at least one example of each element from the story.

Essay Topic 3

Define genre. What is its purpose in literature? Identify the genre of The Historian. What characteristics of that genre are seen in the story?

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