View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which revolutionary dissociates himself from murder as a strategy?

2. How does Stepan Verkhovensky react to the search of Peter's house?

3. What does Stavrogin look for and not find in the final chapters?

4. Shatov is happy to see his wife in spite of what?

5. The first chapter of Part 3 is set the day after what?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the role of the crowd in The Possessed? How do the gathered factory workers or the guests at the fête behave like one character with a unified will or behavior of their own? How does Dostoevsky describe the crowds? What power do they have? What weaknesses?

Essay Topic 2

Peter Verkhovensky exploits the blindness, weakness and gullibility of many characters as he works his wiles. Does the action of the book change any of those characters so that they are immune from Peter's machinations? Asked another way--is The Possessed a moral book that teaches a lesson, or a cynical book that teaches that there are no lessons, only different actors with different motivations?

Essay Topic 3

Following the allegory of the swine from Luke, are the demons cast out of the society of the novel? Are they cast out of Russian society by Dostoevsky's novel?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 262 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample