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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. When Meg realizes that they will need more help with clearing out Bird House, what suggestion of Colin's does she reject?

2. When Beth and Meg are lying in the hammock and talking, what does Beth say she remembers from around the time that Rhys died?

3. At the end of her Chapter 12 email to Jim, what news does Lorelei share?

4. When Lorelei thinks that Jim has abandoned her toward the end of March, what does she not know about Jim's situation?

5. What is the pattern on the dress that Meg and Beth buy for Lorelei to wear for her funeral?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does dramatic irony create a bittersweet mood when Lorelei announces her success in staying at Maddy's house?

2. How does Colin's conversation with Beth alter the reader's understanding of his conversation with Rory about Kayleigh and Tia?

3. What caused Meg to kick Bill out in 2003, and what was the result?

4. In her Chapter 8 email to Jim, what claim does Lorelei make about the cleanliness of her home, and how is this contradicted by evidence elsewhere in the text?

5. What cruel irony does Meg see in what she was doing herself at the time of Lorelei's death?

6. How do Rory's remarks during dinner at the pub in Chapter 14 show that he has genuinely changed?

7. How does Meg's answer to Colin's question about how she is feeling about Lorelei's death demonstrate her complex feelings about her mother?

8. How does Lorelei characterize Rory in her email to Jim?

9. What point does Lorelei make about Valentine's Day in her email to Jim?

10. In Chapter 12, what details of Beth's life in Australia following Vicky's funeral are finally filled in?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the function of the incest motif in The House We Grew Up In? How does it impact the reader's understanding of the characters and their struggles in life? How does it convey messages about healthy and unhealthy family relationships? Write an essay in which you describe how this motif is developed in the lives of the various family members, analyze the nature of this alleged "incest," and then advance a theory about what purpose Jewell intends the motif to serve. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from diction, details, narrative perspective, and plot.

Essay Topic 2

What is the nature of the symbolic relationship between Lorelei Bird and Bird House? Does the house symbolize Lorelei, or an aspect of her? Or is the house more like another character in the story, one that Lorelei has a relationship with that is even more important to her than her relationships with people? Write an essay that considers Bird House as a setting and how the changes in this setting over time shed light on Lorelei and her family. Your essay should make and defend a clear claim about the symbolic nature of the relationship between Lorelei and her home. Support your ideas with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

Essay Topic 3

After finishing the book, the reader should be able to infer where Lorelei was headed in her car on the last day of her life. What motivated her to finally leave Bird House and try to get to Jim's on this particular day? If Jim had been available to answer her emails, do you think she would have gotten in her car to try to get to Gateshead? If Jim had really been trying to end the relationship, what would have happened had Lorelei actually made it to Gateshead? What do you think prevented Lorelei from thinking in a more levelheaded way? Most importantly, why did Jewell choose to have Lorelei die during this first attempt to flee Bird House? Write an essay that takes and defends a position on the significance of Lorelei's death during her attempt to leave Bird House. Consider what this timing says about Lorelei's relationship to the house and the past, and what it says about her relationships with other people--especially romantic partners. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

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