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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. In Chapter 20, what does Cecilia wait to see before giving the order to turn the house around?

2. What does Jane say Miss Darlington treats Cecilia like?

3. Who appears at Lady Armitage's house when she is expecting Ned in Chapter 12?

4. When Ned is daydreaming about marrying Cecilia, what do both his imagined wedding location and honeymoon location have in common?

5. Whose "high, fine voice" do Ned and Cecilia unexpectedly hear while they are in the secret passage (209)?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Cecilia wakes in Northangerland Abbey, what evidence does she consider for and against Ned's involvement with her father?

2. As Pleasance cares for the wounded Miss Darlington, how does their exchange about tea reveal both Miss Darlington's affection for Pleasance and the class divide between the two women?

3. What is the rhetorical function of the extended description of the dinner that Ned, Cecilia, and Lady Armitage prepare in Chapter 13?

4. What is Cecilia's reasoning for suggesting that she and Ned spend some time alone in her bedroom before they rejoin the rest of the Wisteria Society?

5. When Cecilia and Ned are in the portrait gallery and she announces her plan to kill Morvath, what does Ned tell her?

6. What is ironic about Cecilia's concern for Miss Fairweather in the scene in the breakfast room at Northangerland Abbey?

7. What does Ned tell Cecilia right before he kisses her in the broom closet, and how does she respond?

8. What is so upsetting to Ned about Cecilia's "defensive tones" when she is talking about her paternal heritage (128)?

9. What running joke about Jacobsen's name is introduced in Chapter 12, and what motif is this joke a part of?

10. When Ned realizes that Cecilia has a hangover, how does he explain it to her, and why?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay in which you explicate Chapter 26 and argue why it serves as a logical conclusion to the novel that has come before it. How is this chapter the logical culmination of the novel's plot, characterization, and motifs? Support your assertions with evidence from the text.

Essay Topic 2

Consider the symbolic potential of the flying houses in The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels. How do the rules of propriety especially limit the lives of middle- and upper-class women in this text? What are some of the ways in which their flying houses give the pirate women a kind of freedom other women of their social standing lack? Why flying houses as opposed to flying ships--or just regular ships? Write an essay that takes and defends a position about the symbol of flying houses in The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels, considering these questions as well as any others you think are relevant. Offer evidence from the text to support your claims.

Essay Topic 3

You have learned that social critique is characteristic of true Victorian Gothic novels. Write an essay in which you take and defend a position on the following question:

In creating a work that is both an homage to and a parody of the Victorian Gothic, has India Holton managed to provide the social critique characteristic of the Victorian Gothic, or does The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels focus too much on humorous parody to be taken seriously as social criticism?

Provide textual evidence to support your assertions, and if you supplement your evidence with outside sources, be sure to cite these in MLA format.

(see the answer keys)

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