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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. Where does the narrator work when he goes outside the reservation?

2. How much money does the narrator give to the woman who talks to him after he has been beaten in Havre?

3. How much younger than Teresa is Lame Bull?

4. What animal was killed because it attacked the narrator as a child?

5. When the narrator arrives in Malta to find his girlfriend, where does he go first?

Short Essay Questions

1. Other than his family members, how does the narrator interact with women?

2. What does the narrator dislike about the relationship between the priest and his mother?

3. After being beaten by Dougie, why doesn't the narrator retaliate?

4. When the narrator goes fishing in Chapter Three, what is significant about the color of the river?

5. At the beginning of the book, how does the narrator feel about his life?

6. In Chapter Eight, when the narrator argues with his mother about the turkey, what is significant about their differing memories?

7. What attitude do the narrator's people have toward the Cree people, and how is this shown?

8. While sitting at home alone with the old woman in Chapter Five, how does the narrator relate to his grandmother?

9. What is Yellow Calf, the old man, like?

10. Why does the narrator think Lame Bull has married his mother, and how does he feel about it?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Numerous times throughout the story, the narrator has to remind different characters of his age. How does this necessity contribute to the main character's difficulties? Why does he sometimes have to remind himself that he is thirty-two-years-old?

Essay Topic 2

Why does the narrator fall in with the traveling white man? What is it about the man that attracts the narrator? Why?

Essay Topic 3

Why does the narrator initially go after his girlfriend? How does he seem to feel about her? Does this change later in the novel, and if so, why?

(see the answer keys)

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