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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. Who does Margot meet one day later than originally scheduled?

2. What advice from Alessandro did the monastery disregard?

3. What does Madre Badessa ask Margot to do?

4. When did Margot once live in this city?

5. What challenge does the abbess have with the bishop?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Margot respond to working at the convent?

2. About what does Margot become curious while working at the convent, and what does she learn?

3. What does Margot's new living quarters remind her of and how does she change that?

4. What does Margot discover about the book that the Abbess gives into Margot's care?

5. How does Margot first offend two American travelers on the train and then bond with them?

6. How is the monastery partially responsible for the possible damage to some of their frescoes?

7. Discuss the significance of Señor Bruni in Margot's life as a teenager.

8. What are Margot's options for a room when she gets off the train in Florence?

9. What does Margot discover about the way the nuns work and how does Margot react?

10. Describe the scene when the taxi gets a flat tire.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Margot refers to the poem her mother had loved by Robert Frost entitled "The Road Not Taken." Margot realizes that there is no "other road." Her only life is the one that she is living now. Discuss the following:

1. Thoroughly analyze and give a reader response to Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken." Consider such things as imagery, metaphor, syntax, rhythm, and of course, meaning.

2. Take your analysis of "The Road Not Taken" and trace and analyze how it is relevant to The Sixteen Pleasures. What characters are most concerned with the road not taken? What character(s) have irretrievably lost something important by taking a different fork? What character(s) cannot recover from a poor choice made at various forks?

3. Discuss one or two of your own "roads not taken." Do you still regret taking one road versus another in a particular situation? Do you think it would be good to let go? Can you go back and travel the other road? What "difference" has the choice made for you?

Essay Topic 2

The subject of marriage is woven throughout The Sixteen Pleasures. Discuss the following:

1. Discuss the idea of annulment versus divorce. Why would one seek an annulment rather than a divorce? Was divorce even legally possible in Italy in 1966? Is it possible in Italy now? What are the reasons one can receive a marriage annulment? What role does the Catholic Church play in why one would seek an annulment versus a divorce.

2. In The Sixteen Pleasures, Margot is 29 and has not been married and is sexually involved with three different men during the course of the book. Trace and analyze Margot's romantic relationships. Are they healthy? Why do you think she has not married? Do you believe she wants to be in a marriage some day? Being sexually involved before marriage during the 1960s was frowned upon much more than now. Do you think it bothers Margot that she openly violates social convention? What is the Italian attitude towards a woman who is sexually involved with a man she is not married to?

3. Trace and analyze Alessandro's attitude towards marriage. What do you think he believes about the institution of marriage? Why do you think he wants to be released from one marriage only to begin another one immediately? Does it seem to bother Alessandro that he is committing adultery? Do you think the Italian attitude towards men who commit adultery is different than towards women (particularly in the 1960s)? Explain.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss one of the following:

1. Trace and analyze the theme of growth in The Sixteen Pleasures. Consider the following questions as you write: What characters are most concerned with growth? Why? What are some symbols of growth? Symbols of rigidity? What characters seem rigid? Which characters seem to learn and grow from their mistakes? Which do not?

2. Trace and analyze the theme of religion in The Sixteen Pleasures. Which characters embrace religion? Why do they? Which characters seem to have no interest in religion? Why? How influential is the Catholic church upon the behavior of the main characters? The minor characters? How important is religion in the plot? Why?

3. Trace and analyze the theme of art and artistic expression in The Sixteen Pleasures. What is Alessandro's view of art? Margot's? Madre Badessa's? The Monks? Margot's father? Why is art and artistic expression important to some characters? What does art contribute to the plot of The Sixteen Pleasures? How would the plot be affected without art?

(see the answer keys)

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