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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. What made Lessing and her brother weep at the end of Chapter 5?

2. What did the doctor prescribe to alleviate Lessing's mother's ailment?

3. Where did Lessing's father work after he was discharged from the Army?

4. What kind of food were the children fed at the convent that Lessing stayed in as a child?

5. Which of the following did Lessing delight in telling the other children at the school?

Short Essay Questions

1. According to Lessing's memory, how did she learn to interact with people around her?

2. Describe the English views of themselves and their relation to other people as Lessing portrays it in this chapter.

3. Quoting a recent historian, to what major event does Lessing attribute current feelings of mistrust toward the government?

4. What sensation predominated Lessing's childhood?

5. In Chapter 8, how did the girls at the school avoid exams?

6. In Chapter 6, what was Lessing's mother's primary concern about the children?

7. How did Lessing's mother explain the bout of illness that kept her confined to bed?

8. In Chapter 3, what type of child abuse does Lessing describe?

9. How did Lessing avoid dealing with her conflicts with her mother?

10. In your opinion, why does Lessing trace her lineage in the opening chapter?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Examine Lessing's position on social class and class structures. How did Lessing perceive class? What was her social class at birth? And, how did her family's social status affect her understanding of the term, class? What moments from the autobiography appear to have contributed to her notions of what class and class structure were? Considering events from her childhood and young adult years, what inspired Lessing to join the Communist Party of Southern Rhodesia?

Essay Topic 2

In a memoir that spans three continents over the course of the author's life, space and place become particularly significant to the story and to Lessing's overall commentary. Examine the way in which she treats various spaces and places in the text. What themes, messages, or ideas does Lessing develop through her treatment of spaces and places? How does she portray those spaces and places? Be sure to consider limited spaces such as the various houses that Lessing recalls, and places as broad as the countries she lived in, to the various cities or communities where she resided.

Essay Topic 3

Analyze the way in which Lessing discussed children and childhood in her autobiography. Children appeared throughout the work, as Lessing explored her own childhood, as well as the children who she had with her various partners. How did she present childhood in the text? How did Lessing feel that children should be treated? How did she treat them in her portrayal of them? How did having children affect Lessing's life?

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