View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why was Jessie Mottledmare jealous of Grey?

2. What does Grey go to the cemetery to ask her grandmother about Set?

3. Which tribe's myth forms the basis of this story?

4. According to the prologue, how did the giant rock Tsoai become lined?

5. What promise had Grey made that preys on Set?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Koi-ehm-toya see as her responsibility to the children who wander into the woods?

2. What do masks represent to Grey as she makes them?

3. At the Mottledmares', Set has a dream that he is deprived of a power that seems to him important. What does he dream he cannot do?

4. Why is it that Grey never has to quest after visions?

5. The bear comes forth in planes, Dog is seen by Grey as standing in a plane, and Set's mind is perceived in planes. What are planes in this context?

6. What is the unanswered question, "Quien es?" in Chapter One of Book One?

7. Dwight Dicks and his son Murphy are discussing an event, and there is a menace among their words. What event are they discussing in Chapter Eighteen of Book One and why is there menace?

8. What is the purpose that Grey must serve in this chapter, although she is weary and hurt? What would she rather do?

9. How can you tell that Dog belongs to Grey?

10. Why was it better for the Piegan people to believe that the boy was a bear than that he was a boy?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Momaday's use of time. For example, many Native American customs cause the reader to think of the past, but that thought will be jarred by the mention of a modern actor, car, or TV program. What point do you think the author is trying to make by using time in such fluid ways?

Essay Topic 2

Both Set and Grey express themselves through art: Set as a painter and Grey as a writer. Write an essay analyzing the way each expresses himself or herself as it changes through the story. As you catalog the changes, determine whether you think each will continue to practice their painting and writing in the future. If so, do you think they will share their work with others? What do you make of the fact that their great-great grandson is an artist, a maker of shields?

Essay Topic 3

Grey's dialogues with Billy the Kid seem very different from her conversations in real life. Using examples, compare and contrast the Grey of her outlaw fantasies with the real girl. What do these differences tell you about her?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 960 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample