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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 makes Virginia think of millinery?

2. What surprises Sally about Oliver?

3. As she drives, in what does Laura find consolation?

4. What does Richard's empty chair reveal?

5. What makes Richie frown in concentration?

Short Essay Questions

1. What makes Virginia, at this point, begin to reconsider killing off her character, Mrs. Dalloway?

2. What gives Laura the feeling that she has actually succeeded in achieving a kind of perfection?

3. In what way is Laura's ambivalence towards her husband evident in Chapter 19 of The Hours?

4. What are some of the ways in which Laura justifies to herself her trip to the hotel just in order to read?

5. What do the two women exchange as Laura prepares to return home?

6. Why does Laura delay joining her husband in bed as his birthday draws to an end?

7. What is ironic about Richard's apartment being open to the light?

8. What are Laura's rather bitter hopes about heaven?

9. Why does Walter want to buy his young partner a present?

10. What writing decision of Virginia's is prompted by her success in her campaign to move back to London?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How can knowledge of the context in which literature was composed deepen a reader's appreciation of the text? In your answer, refer closely to The Hours by Michael Cunningham, but you might expand your response by including reference to an additional text.

Essay Topic 2

'In the debate about life versus suicide that tracks across the pages of Cunningham's The Hours, there is no winner.' Do you agree?

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?

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