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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 is Kate determined to do this winter?

2. What does Kate call vulgar language?

3. What does Agnes call her sisters when they dance immodestly?

4. What language has Uncle Jack been speaking for twenty-five years?

5. Who is Okawa?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Maggie recollect about Bernie?

2. Why do you think Rose can describe the Festival of Lughnasa to her sisters?

3. Why does Chris call Danny Bradley a bastard?

4. What is significant about the names Nora and Nina that Bernie O'Donnell gave to her twin daughters?

5. Why do you think the opening tableau shows Uncle Jack in his "resplendent" uniform, which is out of place in the play's action?

6. Why do you think the parish priest doesn't want to look Kate in the eye since Uncle Jack came home?

7. What is Maggie's reaction to hearing that her old friend Bernie O'Donnell is in town, and why does she react this way?

8. How far do the Mundys live from the rest of the village, and what significance is there in that distance?

9. From what does Kate struggle to protect her home when they joke about naming the radio?

10. We as readers are told that Rose is "simple." How does the playwright make that clear to the audience?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Maggie asks riddles of young Michael, and he never offers any possible answers, even when she chides him for being stupid. In the end, she herself has forgotten the answer to the riddle she poses. Analyze the playwright's use of riddles in this way. What do you think he is trying to say about Maggie? About Michael? About life?

Essay Topic 2

Analyze what it means to you that young Michael's kites have faces that are cruel and grinning, and that they are not able to fly. Why do you think the playwright put this element into his play? What do these kites tell you about young Michael's feelings toward the women in his family? Toward life in general?

Essay Topic 3

What difference does the fate of the Sweeney boy, who was burned in the festival of Lughnasa, make to the story? Cite what was believed to have happened and what actually happened. Why do you think this detail is included in the play? Is the boy a metaphor? If so, what does he represent?

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