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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 Myshkin tell General Tephanchin when he asks Myshkin about Nastassya?

2. Who does Madam Yephanchin learn came to visit Aglaya while she was out?

3. What is Madam Yephanchin's position about the possibility of Myshkin marrying her daughter Aglaya?

4. What does Hippolite do when Myshkin tells him to stop reading?

5. How does Myshkin feel when he leaves the Yephanchin house at the end of Part IV, Chapter V?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do the guests at the Yephanchins' react to Myshkin's response to Radomsky's political views?

2. Why hasn't Myshkin visited the Yephanchins?

3. Why does Hippolite want to kill himself?

4. What leads up to the violence in the park?

5. How would Myshkin probably act, if he were in Lebedev's place in the disagreement between Lebedev and General Ivolgin?

6. How does Madam Yephanchin react, after Burdovsky and his companions object to the information Ganja reveals about Burdovsky?

7. How does Aglaya react to winning and losing at games?

8. Why does Burdovsky feel he is owed something from Myshkin?

9. What is Ganja's attitude toward his father?

10. How does Myshkin answer Nastassya's question to him, and what is Rogozhin's response?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the role of family in the characters' lives.

1) How do the characters' families and social positions affect their lives? How do family relationships affect how the characters are accepted by society?

2) How does it affect Nastassya that her parents are killed when she is young? How do the characters' upbringings affect their personalities and attitudes?

3) How do the characters' families try to influence the characters' lives and decisions? What forces do families use to influence family members' behavior.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the expectations that characters put on others in the novel.

1) What do the members of society expect Myshkin to be like? How do they treat Myshkin when he does not meet their expectations?

2) What do the characters expect of their friends and family members in the novel? What do Aglyana's parents expect of her, and how do their expectations shape her behavior? What does Nastassya's guardian expect from her, and how do his expectations shape her behavior?

3) What does Myshkin expect from others in the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Throughout the novel, characters communicate private messages through letters. Discuss the role of letters in the novel.

1) Why do characters use letters to communicate? What types of messages do the characters communicate through letters?

2) How do the intentions of letter-writers and the meanings interpreted by readers differ? Why? What does this say about communication in the novel?

3) How do letters being read by unintended audiences or not delivered affect the course of the story?

(see the answer keys)

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