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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 Lewis find within an organ in the mansion in Chapter Eight?

2. Who appears in Chapter Nine to help Lewis?

3. What wakes up Lewis in Chapter Eight a week before Christmas?

4. What do Lewis, Uncle Jonathan, and Mrs. Zimmerman ask in Chapter Ten where the magic clock is?

5. Who is the realtor for the Hanchett's, as said in Chapter Seven?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Lewis see at night in Chapter Seven? What does he think he sees?

2. Why does the car in Chapter Six stop following them? What rule of magic does Uncle Jonathan say this relates to?

3. What is inside the light fixture in the parlor in Chapter Six that has been put back in place? What does Lewis realize from this?

4. In Chapter Seven, why does Lewis not tell Uncle Jonathan what he has done? What does he think of that stops him?

5. Why do Uncle Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmerman say Isaac Izard needed a clock in Chapter Eight? What else went wrong with Izard’s plan?

6. In Chapter Ten, how do Uncle Jonathan, Mrs. Zimmerman, and Lewis say the Izard’s magic is? How do they say theirs is?

7. Where does the eight ball say the magic clock is in Chapter Ten? What do they find when they go there?

8. In Chapter Seven, Hammerhandle move across the street from Barnvault’s Folly. He is known for his mean temper and for being rumored to be able to tell the future. His name is from the handles he makes for Hammers and other instruments.

9. What does Lewis see at night in Chapter Eight? What do they say?

10. How do they celebrate Christmas at the Barnavelt’s house in Chapter Eight? How does Lewis feel?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Light and dark dichotomies are typically used in the Gothic to illustrate good versus evil. How does the novel use this typical color palette to heightened literary effect? Find two examples from the text to support your response. Then look at how the novel uses other colors. What other colors and forms of light does the novel incorporate? How does it create a new palette of the Gothic and why does it do this? Make sure to consider that Barnavelt's Folly has had two recent owners. Use at least four examples in four pages for your overall answer.

Essay Topic 2

A house in literature can stand as a metaphor of a mind, and in the Gothic tradition, what is trapped inside of a house may represent what is trapped within a mind. A locked door may be a part of the brain that is locked away, a corridor may be a shortcut from one thought to another. Apply this understanding of a haunted house to the novel. What is trapped inside, how is it trapped, and whose mind, or minds, does this represent? Write three pages with at least four textual examples.

Essay Topic 3

The main event of the rising action in the novel is not introduced until halfway through the book. From there, the rest of the plot events are in the second half of the book. Why is the book structured in this way? What does this structure allow to also be included in the novel? Why are these additions to the plot included? Write three pages with at least four textual examples.

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