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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 revelation in Chapter Twenty-One explains the memory gap that Nell has from the night Midas was abducted?

2. Which Ancient Greek character does Nell reference in Chapter Thirteen?

3. What object does the narrator obsess about at the beginning of Chapter Nineteen?

4. What does Scarlett do in an attempt to disable the women's phones?

5. Where has Colette gotten the names of some potential therapists for Francie?

Short Essay Questions

1. During her questioning of the person she meets at the bar in Chapter Fourteen, what does Francie learn about Winnie?

2. How does Chapter Seventeen open, and what does this opening make clear about Nell and Sebastian's relationship?

3. How does Francie's mental state both help and hinder the efforts to find Midas?

4. How do Nell and Colette end up in Scarlett's apartment?

5. In the Patricia Faith interview that Nell watches while she is at work in Chapter Thirteen, what makes it clear that Faith is trying to promote a particular viewpoint about Midas's disappearance?

6. What are the implications of the papers that Francie finds in Scarlett's desk drawer?

7. What is ironic about Nell's boss's attitude when he is asking Nell about the magazine cover?

8. In Chapter Fifteen, what promise does the narrator remember making and then immediately breaking?

9. What item is delivered to all three women--Nell, Francie, and Colette--and what does it contain?

10. In Chapter Thirteen, what confusion does Nell express about her mental state on the night of July 4th?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

For much of the book, the reader is meant to suspect that the first-person narrator is Winnie Ross. To what extent does this misdirection depend on Winnie's private nature and the tendency of others to project their own ideas onto the blank canvas of Winnie's introversion? How does this relate to the book's concerns with perspective? Does the book's art depend on the reader being just as culpable as the characters in the process of making assumptions about Winnie? Write an essay that affirms, refutes, or qualifies the following statement: "In The Perfect Mother, Aimee Molloy is able to mislead readers about the first-person narrator's identity by deliberately making Winnie hard to know and encouraging her readers to make the same kinds of assumptions about Winnie as other characters do." Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text; be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

What is Molloy's purpose in pointing out that adverse circumstances like the kidnapping of a child can cause a flare-up in anti-immigrant ideas? How is this thematic motif in The Perfect Mother related to the book's concerns with perspective-taking and judgment of others in general? How is this motif related to the book's concerns with the marginalization of women? Write an essay in which you consider how The Perfect Mother's status as a domestic thriller makes it ideally suited for exploring how adverse, high-intensity circumstances differentially impact marginalized groups. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text; be sure to cite any quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

Which conventions of the domestic thriller does Molloy observe? Which does she ignore or even actively subvert? How do these choices impact the reader? What messages might Molloy be trying to convey through these choices? Write an essay in which you consider the expectations a reader has of domestic thrillers and what Molloy accomplishes through fulfilling some of these expectations but not others. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text; be sure to cite any quoted evidence and evidence drawn from outside sources in MLA format.

(see the answer keys)

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