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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 a fishmonger arrive to tell those at the theater?
2. Why is Kinshi worried about his part in the next performance?
3. What awakens Jiro in the middle of the night?
4. What does Okada ask Jiro?
5. How is the play doing as Spring rolls around?
Short Essay Questions
1. What wakes Jiro in the night and what is the outcome?
2. What does Jiro beg Kinshi to do and what is Kinshi's reply?
3. What does Okada tell Tozo after Jiro leaves Okada?
4. How does Jiro discover a Samurai sword?
5. What does Yoshida ask Jiro and then tell Jiro to do?
6. What part is Kinshi assigned in the new play and what does Jiro learn as they go to get puppets for Kinshi to practice?
7. What does Okada tell Jiro and how does Jiro react?
8. What does Hanji tell Jiro and offer to do, and what is Jiro's response?
9. What does Jiro think about concerning arranging a meeting with Saburo?
10. How does Jiro arrange the meeting with Okada?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Often, authors will write about "what they know," and sometimes knowing a little about the author makes the books more interesting. Discuss the following:
1. Research and give a brief biographical sketch of Katherine Peterson.
2. What in Peterson's background may have helped him in writing The Master Puppeteer? What may have influenced the way he depicts various characters and scenes?
3. Do you think there is always some of the author's own life in his/her novels? Why or why not? Give examples.
Essay Topic 2
In this story, the gap between people's wealth and their social position is particularly large. This is because it is a time of famine, and the farmers are forced to give most of their food to the daimyos. The rice merchants have grown extremely rich while the farmers and other peasants are poor and starving. The samurai might be considered very important on the social scale, but Jiro tells us that even some of the samurai are starving on very small rice stipends. This has made people very angry and restless, as the lowliest and undeserving members of society, the merchants are getting rich and fat while those who should be more important starve. The famine has only made these feelings worse, and has caused the peasants of the city to become desperate.
1. Compare a day in the life of a peasant with a day in the life of a Lord in feudal Japan. Use examples from The Master Puppeteer to support your reasoning.
2. Do you think the rice merchants have an obligation to feed the masses? Why or why not? Use examples from The Master Puppeteer to support your reasoning.
3. What kinds of behaviors do you think desperate, starving people will display and how does starvation of the masses enter into many revolutions in countries? Use examples from The Master Puppeteer to support your reasoning.
Essay Topic 3
Discuss one of the following:
1. Trace and analyze the theme of growth in The Master Puppeteer. Consider the following questions as you write: What characters are most concerned with growth? Why? What are some symbols of growth? Symbols of rigidity? What characters seem rigid?
2. Trace and analyze the theme of courage in The Master Puppeteer. Which characters struggle with this issue? Why? Which characters seem to possess courage? Why?
3. Trace and analyze the theme of class in The Master Puppeteer. Consider the following questions: How does class affect the characters in the story? How is class demonstrated? How rigid is the class system in feudal Japan? What types of struggles are evident because of class?
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This section contains 1,232 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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