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 does Counsel Skiffington find inside the home while he is searching for Moses?

2. What does Counsel run into as he enters Texas and finds himself surrounded by a pack of dogs?

3. Who tells Skiffington that Travis sold Augustus Townsend to slave traders?

4. What does Moses expect Caldonia to do for him now that his family is gone and he is Caldonia's lover?

5. Who accuses Moses of working the slaves too hard and too late into the day?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Counsel find in Mildred's house?

2. How does John Skiffington get killed?

3. Who comes to Manchester County and takes a job as a deputy with the sheriff's office? Why?

4. As Skiffington begins to investigate the disappearance of Moses' family and Alice, what does he begin to suspect?

5. Who does Fern meet on the road as she returns home from consoling Caldonia over her loss for the past five weeks?

6. How is Augustus killed?

7. What injury results in the amputation of Jebediah's foot? How does Fern respond to this operation?

8. Why does Saskia Wilhelm's husband force her into prostitution? Where does Saskia end up?

9. What does Caldonia buy for her slaves that she earlier rejected but now sees as an asset.

10. What disease does Saskia Wilhelm contract that she exposes all the people on Counsel's plantation to?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why does Caldonia begin an affair with Moses? Does Caldonia love Moses? Why or why not? How does learning of Moses' treatment of Celeste affect Caldonia's opinion of Moses? What does Moses do with his family when he begins an affair with Caldonia? Why? What does Skiffington believe Moses has done with his family? Why? Why does Moses barge in on Caldonia and ask why she has not freed him? Why does Moses believe Caldonia should free him? Will she? Why does Moses run away? Where does he go?

Essay Topic 2

Who is Fern? Why does it never occur to Fern to pass as white? Why does Fern remain married to Ramsey? What kind of husband is Ramsey? What is Ramsey's favorite pastime? Does this make Ramsey a bad person? Is Ramsey bad to Fern? What does Fern learn from a slave about Ramsey's fidelity? How does this affect Fern's marriage? Why? How does Fern feel about being a slave owner? Why does she not feel shame at owning slaves? Should she?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the treatment of slaves in this novel. Who treated the slaves worse, the white plantation owners, the white lawmen, the black slave owners, or the slave overseers? What are the differences between the various treatment of the slaves? Who thought they treated the slaves better? Did they? Why or why not? Is it possible to treat a slave kindly? Should slaves have been freed by their black owners? Is it more morally corrupt for a freed slave to own a slave than a white man who has always been free? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 947 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample