View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Louis' profession?

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

3. What is little Richie's response to his mother's return?

4. How has Laura set the table?

5. According to Virginia, what makes a person technically insane?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What distracts Laura as she gets out of her car at Mrs. Latch's house?

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

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

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

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

7. Over what matters concerning Julia does Clarissa worry?

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

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

10. What is Richard's most precious memory of Clarissa?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a detailed critical essay on Michael Cunningham's The Hours. This should be a substantial essay that examines concepts, style, imagery, characterization and imaginative vision. Evaluate the novel. Do you think it deserved its Pulitzer Prize? You will need to write 800-1,000 words.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the tension between commitment and freedom in the lives of the characters in Michael Cunningham's The Hours. Focus particularly on two major characters and one minor one.

Essay Topic 3

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

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 828 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample