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 the tale Lebedev tells at Myshkin's celebration about?

2. What is Hippolite's response to Madam Yephanchin's anger?

3. What games do Aglaya's sisters report that she played with her visitor?

4. What does Koyla ask his father to do?

5. Where does Myshkin recuperate from his seizure?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How does General Ivolgin act when he talks to Myshkin after his argument with Lebedev?

3. Why hasn't Myshkin visited the Yephanchins?

4. How does Myshkin contradict what Aglaya has told him about Ganja?

5. What does Ganja report about Burdovsky's relationship with Pavlishtchev?

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

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

8. How does Myshkin treat Rogozhin, after Rogozhin tried to kill him?

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

10. What does Madam Yephanchin think about, as she brings Myshkin to her house?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Much of the action in the novel happens at parties and social gatherings. Discuss the importance of parties and social gatherings in the novel.

1) Why does so much of the action of the novel take place at parties and social gatherings? How do the characters react differently in these social situations, than in private?

2) What role do parties and social gatherings fulfill in the culture of St. Petersburg? How do they affect the social relationships and social order of the characters?

3) How are events at parties and social gatherings reviewed and critiqued by the people attending the gatherings? How does this change the consequences of those events, which are witnessed by groups of people?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 870 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample