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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. According to Fanshawe's letters, what was the hardest but most interesting job he had on the ship?

2. Why is the narrator apprehensive about opening the suitcases and reading Fanshawe's work?

3. When was the last time the narrator can remember seeing Fanshawe?

4. What is the name of the science of reading bumps on the skull that Whitman believed in?

5. Why do the narrator and Fanshawe hitch-hike home from the cemetery on the day that Fanshawe's father dies?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Blue enters Black's apartment disguised as the Fuller Brush man, what does Black tell Blue his profession is? When Blue later breaks into Black's apartment and steals the papers from his desk, what does he find them to contain?

2. Which of Fanshawe's works does the narrator choose to show first to the editor? What is the editor's reaction to the work?

3. What is Jane Fanshawe's critique of her son? How does she describe the relationship between Fanshawe and his parents?

4. What project does Stuart Green commission from the narrator? What does Sophie suggest the narrator do to make the project more interesting?

5. What aspects of Fanshawe's background could be considered possible liabilities on the ship? How does his background affect the way in which he is actually treated by his fellow shipmates?

6. What is difficult for Blue about writing the monthly reports of Black's activities for White to read? What does he want to include in the reports to make them more truthful?

7. Why does the narrator struggle with showing Fanshawe's letter to Sophie? What does he do instead?

8. What does Jane Fanshawe do after lunch? What does the narrator think motivates this act?

9. During their second conversation, what is Black's response when Blue asks him if the man he watches knows he is being watched? How does Black justify his answer?

10. What initiates the argument between Sophie and the narrator at the end of Chapter 7? What is the status of their relationship when the narrator leaves for Paris?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Throughout The New York Trilogy, writers and detectives are constantly confused. Writers become detectives and detectives become writers and readers. Give two examples of this concept and then compare and contrast the two professions. How are language and action important in both?

Essay Topic 2

At the end of The Locked Room, the writer reads Fanshawe's red notebook and remarks, "All the words were familiar to me, and yet they seemed to have been put together strangely, as though their final purpose was to cancel each other out. I can think of no other way to express it. Each sentence erased the sentence before it, each paragraph made the next paragraph impossible." What theme from the story is exemplified in this quote? Give three examples of this theme throughout The New York Trilogy.

Essay Topic 3

What is the importance of setting in the three novels that comprise The New York Trilogy? How is the city represented in each of the novels? What associations does New York have with writing and writers?

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