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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 is Radomsky's former profession?

2. Who wrote the note that Varya finds on Ganja's desk?

3. When Nastassya sees Myshkin at the end of Chapter VI, what does she do?

4. What does Lebedev plan to do about the missing money?

5. Who does Myshkin stop one of the officer friends of the Yephanshins from hitting?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

6. How do Myshkin and Agalya each interpret Myshkin's earlier letter to Agalya?

7. What does Keller ask Myshkin for?

8. What does Madam Yephanchin feel about her daughter's relationship with Myshkin?

9. Why hasn't Myshkin visited the Yephanchins?

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

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 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

Discuss the nature of goodness in the novel.

1) In what ways does Myshkin embody goodness? Is Myshkin's goodness always truly good?

2) Why can't Myshkin's goodness survive in St. Petersburg society? Is goodness doomed to tragedy and failure?

3) Does Rogozhin have any goodness in him? In what ways are the other characters good?

(see the answer keys)

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