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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 was Glad Pettit's occupation?

2. What does the unusual amount of energy cause Mat to do?

3. When friends and family begin to worry about Jack living on his own, where does Jack go?

4. Who annoys Mat on the day of the funeral service?

5. What was the relationship between Jack and Glad?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was Jack's relationship with his daughter Clara like?

2. What does Mat observe and realize after the preacher concludes his prayer during Jack's funeral?

3. What kind of burial does Mat know Jack would have wanted to have?

4. Why does Wheeler go to Jack's farm?

5. What kind of things does Wheeler see that remind him of Jack?

6. After Wheeler gives Elton the news about the farm, what does Wheeler do?

7. What happened after Jack found Ruth struggling to breathe?

8. How does Mat feel about Jack's death?

9. What happened to Ben not long after Jack paid him the money Jack borrowed from him?

10. What does Andy do before he leaves Port William to go to college?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the author's point in writing this novel? Clearly, Wendell Berry was trying to get a message to Americans through Jack's story. Write an essay that explains what you think Berry's point is and whether or not he was effective in making the point.

Essay Topic 2

Jack remembers being drunk and initiating a fight with Sim McGrother. When he returns to his house, he sees his barn on fire. The reader never learns whether or not McGrother set the barn on fire, but the implication is there that McGrother was responsible. With what the reader knows of Jack as a person, is that type of violence toward Jack warranted? Why would the author have chosen to introduce that level of hatred toward the protagonist? Could the author have included that incident as a way for the reader to feel sympathetic toward Jack, or was the event strictly symbolic of something else in Jack's life? Write an essay that addresses these issues.

Essay Topic 3

Of note in the novel is the emphasis that the author places on the slow death of the agrarian society in America post World War II. Write an essay that summarizes how Berry showed that agrarian society was dying out and being replaced by modern society. Give examples from the novel that show how Berry could have possibility felt about the issue as he wrote the novel.

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