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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. Which of the following song for children made Lessing's mother cry?

2. In Chapter 4, what city did Lessing's mother insist on traveling through on the way back to England?

3. Which of the following illnesses did Lessing's family battle?

4. What did Lessing's father think of his Persian business partners?

5. Which company offered loans to the farmers in Lessing's region?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. What essential skill did Lessing learn in Chapter 5?

5. From the details Lessing provides in Chapter 1, describe the circumstances which led to Maude's broken heart.

6. According to Lessing in Chapter 2, what is the role of truth in autobiographical writing?

7. How did Lessing become an atheist?

8. How does Lessing describe her childhood vulnerability?

9. What did Lessing suspect was the root of her mother's illness?

10. In Chapter 7, what did Lessing and her brother do in the bush?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

As Lessing reached early adulthood, she moved in very cosmopolitan circles of society. Where did that cosmopolitanism attribute of hers originate? How did the diversity within her social circles contribute to the political and intellectual positions assumed by members of those groups? In what ways were cosmopolitan circles limited?

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