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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. Why did Kurt and Esther refuse to attend meetings?

2. How does Lessing describe the letters that she received from her mother?

3. What book does Lessing cite in her discussion of the Russian front?

4. What method of birth control had Lessing been using?

5. What does Lessing mention as the one thing that would have stopped her from marrying Frank?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Lessing believe to be the true cause of her father's death?

2. What did Lessing realize when she was diagnosed with Low Fever and sent to the mountains to recover?

3. Ultimately, why did Lessing think that she and Gottfried were mismatched?

4. Describe Lessing's ultimate assessment of the impact of the Communist Party in Southern Rhodesian politics.

5. In Chapter 19, what does Lessing describe as the smartest decision that she ever made?

6. What conditions did Lessing ponder as possible circumstances that would have changed her views on Communism?

7. Describe the feeling that Lessing had before she left Frank.

8. How did Lessing support herself when she no longer lived with her parents?

9. How did Lessing describe Kurt in Chapter 16?

10. In Chapter 11, who was Dorothy Schwartz?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explore and discuss the way in which Lessing deals with mental illness in her autobiography. How did she approach the issue of mental illness? How did she treat the people whom she mentioned within her autobiography who suffered from mental illness? Was she sympathetic? Compassionate? Understanding? What effect did mental illness have on her life? How might that effect, if any, explain or illuminate her position on mental illness?

Essay Topic 2

Growing up in two distinct regions of the British Empire, Lessing received a very intimate portrait of race relations in the British territories before the dissolution of the Empire. Analyze the way in which Lessing approached race and race relations in her autobiography. How did she define the term, race, among the people living in Persia and Southern Rhodesia at that time? How did the different races interact in Southern Rhodesia? How did Lessing's understanding of race compare or contrast with the opinions of those around her?

Essay Topic 3

Examine the way in which Lessing presented her relationship with her mother. Did she respect or resent her mother? What strained their relationship? Why did Lessing's mother disapprove of Lessing's choices? Ultimately, how did Lessing reflect on her relationship with her mother?

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