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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. When Ivan Ilych gets home from the doctor, what does he do?

2. What year is it in the novel?

3. What profession is Ivan Ilych?

4. Why does Ivan Ilych marry?

5. Even after Ivan Ilych realizes that he is going to die, what kinds of thoughts does he try to think about?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Ivan stop doing in Chapter 11?

2. What is the setting of Chapter 1?

3. Discuss the irony in Ivan resenting his dying from something so trivial as falling off the step ladder.

4. How is it possible that Ivan hasn't seen how thin and yellow he looks until his brother-in-law arrives?

5. Why is Ivan so upset that he didn't get the promotion?

6. What is ironic about the opening of Chapter 3 when it states that 1880 is "the hardest year of Ivan's life?"

7. How does the opium affect Ivan?

8. What does Ivan's self-revelation turn into?

9. How does Ivan respond to not getting the promotion and why?

10. Describe how Ivan is torn in Chapter 9 and what affect this has on him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explain how Ivan goes through the five stages of dying. What emotions does he experience?

Essay Topic 2

What is the discontinuity between how character's act and what they feel throughout the novel? Why is how they act different than how they feel?

Essay Topic 3

Explain the "black sack" in Chapter 9. What could the black sack represent to Ivan? Why does Tolstoy use the metaphor of the "black sack?" How does Tolstoy use the metaphor? Do you think Tolstoy uses this metaphor effectively? Can you think of a more effective metaphor Tolstoy could have used to make his point clearer?

(see the answer keys)

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