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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 does a good house speak of?

2. What troubles Laura about Richie?

3. Who is Ralph?

4. What does writing, when inspired, give to Virginia?

5. How many words has Virginia written in this session?

Short Essay Questions

1. What makes Clarissa Vaughan embarrassed?

2. What is significant about the kiss Laura gives to Kitty?

3. What impression of Leonard Woolf is given in this chapter?

4. Comment on an aspect of the Prologue's final paragraph.

5. Comment on the style of the Prologue to The Hours by Michael Cunningham.

6. What does Willie Bass think of Clarissa?

7. How pervasive are the voices Virginia hears?

8. What is the 'inner faculty' that Virginia refers to?

9. What is Virginia's attitude toward Vanessa's children?

10. What are Laura's feelings about her son?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Is Richard Worthington Brown's death a tragedy? You need to consider the nature of tragedy as well as the illness Richard suffered.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Cunningham's style in The Hours. Was it essential for him to adopt a style similar to Virginia Woolf's in order to compose this novel?

Essay Topic 3

Much of the novel, The Hours, deals with characters' views of themselves and their fears concerning failure. Are these people actually successful, and in which ways or spheres of endeavor?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 985 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample