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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, if any, were H.'s last words?

2. What does the author conclude about the way that lovers feel about the other one's death?

3. Who said, "Why have you forsaken me?"

4. By the end of the second chapter, what does the author think about human contemplation of God?

5. What did H. say so often?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Lewis experience when he finally goes to a place where he and H. had been happy?

2. How does Lewis try to convince himself that he does not mind H.'s death? Provide examples of the things that Lewis tells himself.

3. How did Lewis feel years ago about a friend's life after death? Contrast that experience with the way that Lewis experiences H. after her death?

4. H.'s absence is most evident to Lewis in his body. How does Lewis experience his own body in his grief?

5. Lewis begins to ask a question that becomes central to his reflections. What "disquieting symptom" introduces itself to Lewis in Chapter One?

6. Why is Lewis "appalled" when he read what he has written in the first chapter?

7. Does Lewis have trouble believing that God exists? Explain.

8. Lewis is surprised about the way that grief intrudes upon his daily responsibilities. What are some symptoms Lewis experiences about the laziness of grief?

9. What does Lewis mean by the term "live" as it relates to H.'s memory?

10. 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.?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Cancer plays a large role in Lewis's pain. He gives the disease its due in his reflections and, as is true of his later reflections, Lewis is interested in the disease itself as compared to the disease's demands. Discuss Lewis's thoughts on cancer, as he reflects on the disease throughout the book. Consider questions such as: How does Lewis describe the difference between the reality that is cancer and the ways in which one must meet cancer's increasing demands? How does Lewis describe what people actually encounter about cancer? What does cancer "look like" in day-to-day, minute-by-minute terms?

Essay Topic 2

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.

Essay Topic 3

Lewis offers a passage in Chapter Four that is full of similes. Describe the passage, referring to the similes. What does the moment Lewis describes mean? How does it reveal Lewis's progression through deep pain and sorrow? What is noticeably different from Lewis's reflections earlier in the book, especially the first two chapters?

(see the answer keys)

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