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Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. Who has just died?
2. How do some of the author's friends try to console him?
3. Rather than relying upon his memory of his wife, what does the author want?
4. What does the author conclude about the way that lovers feel about the other one's death?
5. What does the author say happens when we experience any kind of pain?
Short Essay Questions
1. What is one aspect of the supposed consolation that H. continues that troubles Lewis?
2. How does Lewis think people react when they encounter him?
3. What aspects of religion is Lewis glad to discuss? What aspect of religion is Lewis not willing to accept?
4. H.'s absence is most evident to Lewis in his body. How does Lewis experience his own body in his grief?
5. What was so striking and disturbing about Lewis's encounter with the man he had not seen for 10 years? What image comes to Lewis's mind about memories of H.?
6. Lewis is surprised about the way that grief intrudes upon his daily responsibilities. What are some symptoms Lewis experiences about the laziness of grief?
7. What does Lewis realize is the problem with deciding to think less about himself and more about H.?
8. What does Lewis think that he can say about H.'s continuing? Why is it important for Lewis to work out the issue of where H. is?
9. What is it about cancer that prompts some of Lewis' reflections?
10. Lewis turns to C. with questions about God. How does C. respond to Lewis's thoughts?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Images play important roles and relate to central ideas in Lewis's reflections. What is important about images for Lewis? In the last chapter, Lewis writes about images and reality. How does Lewis regard images? What is Lewis's example of a reality that has powerful images (icons) associated with it? What does Lewis determine is the nature of reality as it relates to images? What does all that mean for the one who grieves and wants his beloved back?
Essay Topic 2
In Chapter Two, Lewis describes an encounter with a man whom Lewis had not seen for a long time. Discuss the feelings and realizations Lewis experienced through his encounter with this man. How does Lewis describe his realization to the reader, and why might he choose that method to describe his realization?
Essay Topic 3
Lewis describes an encounter with a man with a hoe and a watering can who was preparing to tend to the man's mother's grave. Lewis is "horrified" by the encounter, which displays Lewis's consistent desire to penetrate to the reality of the death of H. and the reality of God.
1) Discuss what it is about the man with the hoe that caused Lewis to be so troubled. Was it something the man said or did?
2) What does Lewis reflect is better; tending to a grave and letting that be one's sense of reality about the deceased, or to pass by symbols and seek to do without the person? Explain what Lewis is trying to work out.
This section contains 928 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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