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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. How does Francis initially think blueprints were produced?

2. What is Brother Kornhoer inventing?

3. What does Francis admit about the strange pilgrim?

4. With what does the pilgrim attack Brother Francis?

5. Why doesn't Francis open the racing form?

Short Essay Questions

1. Compare the robber's view of the illuminated blueprint and the original relic to Francis's.

2. What is Brother Francis seeking in the desert?

3. Why were papers burned during the Simplification?

4. Why is the find of Emily Leibowitz's skull important to the case for the canonization of Leibowitz?

5. Describe Taddeo's ideas about history.

6. Describe Brother Kornhoer's invention.

7. Why doesn't Francis merely tell the abbot what he wants to hear?

8. Describe Abbot Paulo's health problem.

9. What is the implication of the wry smile on Fingo's statue of Leibowitz?

10. Describe the pilgrim.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Does the novel contain miracles, or is it ambiguous? Describe in your discussion possible miraculous events in the novel, including the life of the Old Jew and the actions of Rachel at the end of the novel. What are the possible natural explanations of these events? If these events are miraculous, what is their purpose and meaning, and what do they say about the nature of God?

Essay Topic 2

Compare the three abbots who control the Albertine Order of Leibowitz. What are their goals and fears? How do they see their duty toward the Memorabilia, the Order, and the Church? In what different ways do they carry out those duties?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the nature of knowledge in the novel.

Part 1) What do the Memorabilia represent? Why do the monks want to preserve it?

Part 2) Is knowledge good or evil or neutral? What are the consequences, positive and negative, of mankind's gaining of knowledge? How does knowledge in the novel relate to the story of the Garden of Eden and the fall of man for tasting the fruit of the tree of knowledge?

Part 3) Can knowledge be permanently lost?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 770 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample