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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 is it that Tom decides he must find at all cost?

2. What does Tom Crick's new-coined term "histrionics" refer to?

3. Which of the following does NOT draw Mary and Tom closer together?

4. Who does Tom Crick think his wife Mary is having a love affair with in her old age?

5. What does Tom Crick think the French really celebrate on Bastille Day when they mark the beginning of the French Revolution?

Short Essay Questions

1. In chapter 23, Tom Crick asserts that the 14th of July festivities the French celebrate as Bastille Day are more of a fairy tale than anything else. What makes him say so?

2. In chapter 45, what is the symbolic significance of where Dick elected to hide the key from Tom to their mother's chest?

3. As he watches Dick ride off on his motorbike at the end of chapter 46, Tom states that Dick rides as if he has the legacy of the Atkinsons on his back. How so?

4. What is the significance of phlegm for the body according to chapter 51?

5. In chapter 7, Tom describes the complicated relationship between Mary, Tom, Freddie Parr, and Dick. Briefly discuss the main dynamics of this relationship.

6. In chapter 6, Tom Crick suggests that the Fens and history have what in common?

7. In chapter 19, Tom Crick describes the beginning of the decline of his grandfather, Ernest Atkinson. Discuss what caused that decline.

8. In chapter 29, Tom comes up with a way to test whether Dick killed Freddie Parr. What does he do to provoke a reaction from Dick? What reaction does he get?

9. in chapter 44, Tom Crick and his wife Mary return the baby Mary stole to the Safeways store where she found it. What are Tom's fears as they approach the mother of the child and how does the mother react?

10. Chapter 51 is titled "About Phlegm." What is the significance of phlegm for the novel?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

One of the strains in the novel Waterland concerns the differences between Tom Crick and his student Price. Outline their initial disagreements. Then discuss how Tom slowly guides Price from opposing the study of history to finding it worthwhile. In the novel, this occurs through a series of steps that are both philosophical and personal. Make sure to trace them in a detailed, logical, and chronological fashion. In your conclusion, analyze whether it is Tom who has changed Price or Price who has changed Tom.

Essay Topic 2

Graham Swift's novel Waterland features several important symbols that recur over and over again--the phlegm-like soil, the chest in the attic and the hidden key, pikes and eels, Coronation Ale, the empty bottle Tom finds in the river, the ruined windmill, and so on. Choose two of those symbols, trace in detail how they are used throughout the novel to point to something beyond themselves, and discuss how and why they are important to understanding some of the deeper truths the novel is trying to convey.

Essay Topic 3

Sexual relationships and their consequences are central to Graham Swift's novel Waterland. Choose one of those relationships between the characters and their sexuality. Explore why the characters express their sexuality as they do. Explain the consequences these choices have for each of them and for their partners. Analyze in how far their sexual development is tied to external factors--such as social pressure--over which they have no control, and in how far it is their own choices that lead to the consequences that they have to face.

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