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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. When Ava wakes up in the middle of the night and finds a pigeon outside her window, what sound does she hear first?

2. What adjective does Josephine use to describe her spirit in the moment she hastily tells Charlotte about Eliza's pregnancy?

3. Who tells Major that he ought not to "let a man treat you like a dog too many times," lest "you start to feel like one" (211)?

4. How does Charlotte respond when Josephine tells her about Eliza's pregnancy?

5. Which mixed-race character at Wildwood has the slaveowner at Wildwood for a father?

Short Essay Questions

1. Whose influence does Eliza tell Josephine is leading her husband Major to make bad decisions?

2. For what reason does Missus gather together all of Wildwood's slaves one day after she becomes pregnant?

3. How does Josephine deal with the loneliness she experiences during one particular period of 1924?

4. For what act does Ava feel gratitude toward Grandma Martha in relation to the period just after King's birth?

5. Discuss an instance when Sexton uses a literary device to indicate a contrast between two characters.

6. Discuss an instance of foreshadowing within the text.

7. When Grandma Martha goes missing for an alarming period of time, where is she ultimately located and by whom?

8. Describe an instance when the theme of hope is presented as a liability.

9. How does Ava feel after she leads a meeting of her doula mother Gladys's pregnant clients during Gladys's recuperation?

10. Which people begin to stop visiting Josephine all at once, causing her to "go days without seeing another face" (175) in 1924?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Sexton’s use of the water motif within the novel The Revisioners.

Essay Topic 2

Look carefully at the passages of The Revisioners that describe the close relationship between Ava and her 12-year-old son King. What is Sexton’s purpose for discussing at length the nature of the connection between this mother and son and in what way does the relationship contain several of the text’s main themes?

Essay Topic 3

Trace the characterization arc of Josephine’s character throughout the novel The Revisioners. Discuss whether Josephine is a round or flat character and whether she is a static or dynamic character.

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