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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. After returning home from Havre, what does the narrator notice is different about his home?

2. After his night with Marlene, where does the narrator walk out to?

3. When Ferdinand Horn visits for the second time, what does the narrator lie to him about?

4. After sleeping with Marlene, what emotion does her appearance elicit in the narrator?

5. What is the name of the bartender in the Palace Bar in Havre?

Short Essay Questions

1. After spending several days in Havre, how does the narrator go about returning home, and why?

2. How is the narrator treated by the people who give him a ride home from Havre, and how is that typical of his experiences with outsiders?

3. When the narrator nearly dies in Chapter 42, what does he suddenly understand about dying?

4. Based on the behavior of the white traveling man, what may have happened if the narrator had driven him over the border?

5. After the narrator digs his grandmother's grave, what does he begin to think about, and what effect do his thoughts have on him?

6. When the narrator goes out to visit Yellow Calf the second time, how is his visit significant to the story?

7. While Mose and the narrator are herding cattle, what contributes to Mose's death?

8. What kind of a relationship do the old woman and Yellow Calf have throughout the years before Teresa's birth?

9. At the very end of the book, what does the narrator determine to do and how is this different from the beginning of the book?

10. After the narrator spends several days in Havre, what does he finally want to do, and why?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is significant about the narrator's realization that Yellow Calf is his grandfather? How does this affect him and his story? How does this fit in with the overall theme of the story?

Essay Topic 2

During the story, the narrator is drunk, robbed, beaten, and nearly arrested. How much of the narrator's background contributes to his misfortune? How much is the result of his own choices?

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?

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