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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 act of submissiveness does Charlotte warn Ottilie against?

2. What significant physical condition is revealed about Charlotte in Part I, Chapter 18?

3. How do Eduard and Ottilie unexpectedly prove their compatibility with one another?

4. Whom does the master of the estate propose come to live with himself and his wife?

5. What idea of the male guest strikes Charlotte like a "thunderbolt?"

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the Baroness discover about Eduard, and how does she react to it?

2. What is the substance of Charlotte and Eduard's argument at the beginning of Part I, Chapter 16, and how is it resolved?

3. How does Eduard change in the wake of his realization of his passion for Ottilie?

4. How does Ottilie act around the others when she arrives at the estate?

5. What sudden action does Eduard take after the Captain leaves the household?

6. Describe the Count and the Baroness and the circumstances surrounding them.

7. What does Mittler do regarding Charlotte and Eduard's tense situation?

8. What does Eduard decide to do to further his relationship with Ottilie, and how does this attempt end up?

9. How does Ottilie and Charlotte's relationship change in Part I, Chapter 17?

10. Describe Eduard's and the Captain's interactions with members of the lower social classes.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Examine the role of human beings in shaping the natural landscape. What do the four protagonists use the land for? How do they view their use of it, and the general purpose the landscape has? Describe their relationship to the land in terms of the utilitarian, the picturesque, the beautiful, and/or the sublime? What does nature seem to symbolize for each character, and what is the significance of this symbolism? How might a reader interpret the protagonists' use of and relation to the land as a statement by Goethe about human interactions with nature in his own time and place?

Essay Topic 2

Examine the themes of embodiment, physicality, sexuality, and sensuality that are present in the novel. How do the characters' physical presence sometimes influence the thoughts, feelings, and actions of other characters? What is the significance of inanimate objects such as letters, contracts, and trinkets embodying certain characters? Why might the narrator find it important to note, in Part II, Chapter 13, that just before Otto dies Ottilie experiences two distinct moments of true sensuality? How do Eduard and Charlotte interact each other in Part I, Chapter 11 by imagining their lovers embodied in each other? What episodes of, or references to, frank sexuality and sensuality do you think are important to an understanding of the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the role of Herr Mittler and the theme of mediation in the novel. What is Herr Mittler's role, and how does he "play his part" by interacting in specific ways with the other characters? How does the narrator act as a mediator between the reader and the characters, plot, and moral of the story? Mediation means to "come between" things--are there any other mediating forces in the novel, besides Mittler, such as other characters, events, settings, objects, ideas, and so on?

(see the answer keys)

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