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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 season is setting in in Chapter 39 (pp. 136-137)?

2. Where does Ballard have sex with the newly killed girl?

3. What is Ballard approaching a the beginning of Chapter 43 (pp. 149-153)?

4. Which of the following is not something that Ballard does to the woman's body the night after his shopping excursion?

5. What does Ballard mix with the squirrels to make a stew?

Short Essay Questions

1. How were the White Caps run out of Sevier?

2. How do the police catch Kirby selling jars of whiskey?

3. Describe the story Fate tells about the 1899 hanging.

4. What wakes Lester Ballard the night after his shopping spree in town?

5. How does Ballard react to Ralph's daughter's rejection of his advances?

6. What point does Mr. Fox make to Ballard about his debt to the grocery?

7. How does Ballard's situation change in this section?

8. How does Ballard subsist as the harsh winter descends?

9. What does Ballard do at his old property, now Greer's?

10. What does Ballard find in the running car on the side of the road?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the opening passages of the book, McCarthy gives a description of Ballard as a soul. In the closing passages, he creates a portrait of Ballard as a body, vivisected into its component organ systems by doctors and students. Compare these two passages under the thesis of how McCarthy portrays Ballard throughout the novel. Is he creating a portrait that we are supposed to understand or a subject we are supposed to observe?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the Sheriff. Is he an effective law enforcer? Is he a principled man with a vision for his County? Write your essay in three paragraphs, detailing three specific episodes in the text that are driven by the Sheriff. Detail the episodes and examine how effective the character is in achieving his objective.

Essay Topic 3

Certain chapters of the novel are told from a first-person point-of-view and involve Sevier residents attempting to explain Ballard's past. Write an essay charting Ballard's transition form victim to bully to societal tumor, framing it in discussion of the following chapters:

Part 1) The man who discusses Ballard's loss of his mother and father.

Part 2) The man who tells the story of Ballard as a child bully.

Part 3) The man who talks about Ballard's younger jobs.

(see the answer keys)

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