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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. From where does the consul call for help when Hugh is over?

2. Who is one of the few remaining members of the consul's household staff that Yvonne talks to?

3. Where does Hugh go after he returns home from his sea voyage?

4. What is unique about the book the bartender returns to Laruelle in Chapter 1?

5. What does the consul continue to point out to Yvonne during their walk home the day she returns?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is the letter significant that the mailman brings, from Yvonne to Laruelle, while Yvonne is there with Hugh and the consul?

2. Why does most of the consul's household staff leave him during his estranged wife's absence?

3. Where is the consul sent to live, as a young boy, after his parents died?

4. What does the consul do when his estranged wife goes to take a bath?

5. What actually happens to Hugh's music career while he was at sea?

6. Why does Hugh not know about the state of the consul's and Yvonne's marriage?

7. Why can the consul not translate the Spanish signs when he is lost in town?

8. When Yvonne has finally returned to their home, why does the consul initially think that she won't mind his drinking?

9. What does Yvonne admit to Hugh about her plans for the consul?

10. How does the consul react to Yvonne's arrival?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

List three ways that the story of the German soldiers' deaths and the consul's role in them impact the reader's view of the consul as a character before he actually arrives in "Under the Volcano."

Essay Topic 2

Why does Lowry choose to have Yvonne and the consul appear to reconcile and mend their relationship at the bull fight? What message is he trying to convey about each character through this event?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss at least three ways that Lowry's placement of the novel in a foreign country (foreign to the consul, that is) has an impact on the novel.

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