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

Short Answer Questions

1. How does the audience respond to Karminazov's reading?

2. What does Virginsky say to the radicals after Shatov's wife gives birth?

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

4. What happens to the swine in the story from Luke?

5. What does Lisa overhear of Stavrogin's conversation with Peter?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Is The Possessed a Christian novel? What kind of Christianity does it align with? Old Testament or New Testament? In what ways does the novel seem atheistic, or existential?

Essay Topic 2

Is Shatov's wife's pregnancy a source of real hope in The Possessed, or is the hope undermined by her infidelity and Shatov's murder? Does the childbirth redeem anyone in the book?

Essay Topic 3

What is the genre of The Possessed? Is it a realistic novel of Russian life, or is it something else? A philosophical melodrama? A political thriller? An allegory of radicalism?

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