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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. How many daughters do the Yephanchins have?

2. Who is Prince Myshkin traveling to meet?

3. Who is home when Myshkin visits the Yephanchins' house, after leaving Rogozhin?

4. What does General Ivolgin do, after promising to bring Myshkin to see Nastassya?

5. What does Aglaya ask Myshkin to read?

Short Essay Questions

1. What wrongs does Ganja accuse Myshkin of during this section?

2. What does Ferdyshchenko do with his ill-gotten gains?

3. What happens to Myshkin when Rogozhin tries to kill him?

4. What does Ferdyshchenko describe doing to make sure someone else is blamed for his own theft?

5. What reason does Yephanchin say he has to be guilty over someone's death?

6. How does Nastassya react to Rogozhin's offer of a present?

7. What does Yephanchin say that he did to make up for his guilty feelings?

8. How does Aglaya react to Ganja's letter?

9. Why is Ganja marrying Nastassya?

10. What does Nastassya ask Myshkin, after hearing the stories of the men at the party?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The novel centers around the characters' love relationships. Discuss love in the novel.

1) What causes characters to fall in love with each other in the novel? How can the characters, and the reader, distinguish between true love and different kinds of attraction in the novel?

2) What role does jealousy play in the characters' love relationships? What role does the characters' ideas of their self-worth play in their attraction to others?

3) What role does social position and money play in the characters' love relationships?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss beauty and women in the novel.

1) How do the characters treat beautiful women differently from women who are not beautiful, or who are less beautiful? How is beauty valued in the society and by Myshkin?

2) Why is Nastassya introduced to Myshkin first by a picture? What does Myshkin know about Nastassya, based on her picture? How does Nastassya's beauty affect her life and her character?

3) How does Aglaya's beauty affect her life and her character? Does it change her personality? How would her life be different if she were not beautiful?

Essay Topic 3

Myshkin is known for his forgiveness of others throughout the novel. Discuss forgiveness in the novel.

1) Why does Myshkin continue to forgive others for wrongs, including Rogozhin's murder of Nastassya? Are there other characters in the novel that forgive each other for wrongdoings?

2) How does the knowledge of assured forgiveness affect the characters' behavior? Does it make Lebedev more likely to be complicit in the scandalous article against Myshkin? Does forgiveness have a negative affect on characters?

3) When do the characters not forgive each other? How does the lack of forgiveness affect the characters' lives?

(see the answer keys)

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