View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was the disadvantage of building the piazza on the north side of the house?
(a) The north side faces the neighbors.
(b) The north side faces the village.
(c) The north side is coldest.
(d) The north side has the narrowest view.

2. Why does the narrator of "The Piazza" feel that the house must have a piazza?
(a) A piazza would increase the home's value.
(b) The house has a spectacular view.
(c) All the neighbors have piazzas.
(d) Piazzas are in fashion.

3. How does Melville describe Captain Delano's personality?
(a) Autocratic and dictatorial.
(b) Pessimistic and unhappy.
(c) Mistrustful and suspicious.
(d) Trusting and benevolent.

4. How does the narrator in "The Lightning Rod Man" feel about the storm before the salesman arrives?
(a) He thinks the storm is "terrifying."
(b) He thinks the storm is "radiant" and "beautiful."
(c) He thinks the storm "thought-provoking."
(d) He thinks the storm is "grand" and "glorious."

5. Why does the narrator of "The Piazza" believe the soil is richer around the cottage that he finds?
(a) The garden is obviously well-fed there.
(b) The owners have planted there.
(c) There is more sunlight there.
(d) There is a sense of blessedness there.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who wrote the book lying on the apple-tree table?

2. What first attracts the narrator of "The Piazza" to a building far in the mountains?

3. What sentence was chalked below the figurehead?

4. What emblem does John Gentian refuse to wear?

5. What habit of the bachelors in the Temple does the narrator wish to introduce in his own country?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator of "The Fiddler" first admire about Hautboy?

2. What is unusual about the bug that emerges from the apple-tree table in the story of that name?

3. What seems odd about Benito Cereno's ship when Captain Delano first sees it?

4. What does the narrator of "The Piazza" think when he first sees a single bright spot in the northwestern hills?

5. Why does the owner of the paper factory in "The Tartarus of Maids" tell the narrator that all of his workers are called "girls"?

6. Why doesn't the narrator in "The Piazza" grant Marianna's wish and tell her that he is the resident of the house that she believes contains happiness?

7. Why does the narrator of "The Lightning Rod Man" compare the salesman to a worm?

8. What does the landscape painter, B. Hobbema Brown, believe about the Marquis de Grandvin?

9. What does the narrator claim shows Jack Gentian's natural gentility?

10. Why do the peacocks on the wallpaper in the parlor seem to the narrator to represent Jimmy Rose?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 857 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample