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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. How was John Marr wounded?

2. Whose cause does the Marquis de Grandvin champion?

3. What indicates to Captain Delano that the strange ship may be in trouble?

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

5. What is the attitude of the bachelors in the Temple toward pain and trouble?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the figurehead on the San Dominick?

2. Why is the narrator despondent at the beginning of "The Fiddler"?

3. What is Captain Delano's intention in boarding Benito Cereno's ship?

4. Why does the narrator of "I and My Chimney" believe his chimney is good for invalids?

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

6. What foibles does the narrator claim Jack Gentian possesses?

7. According to the deposition in "Benito Cereno," what would have happened to Captain Delano if he had suspected a mutiny aboard the San Dominick?

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

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

10. Why did the Spanish naval board of inquiry at first reject parts of Benito Cereno's deposition?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Melville's use of time, switching back and forth between present and past tenses in the same story, is an unusual method to bring the reader a sense of immediacy. Select a story such as "The Two Temples" to analyze the effectiveness of this technique.

Essay Topic 2

A recurring theme in Melville's stories is the difference between appearance and reality. Choose a character such as Claggart, who appears to have only sterling qualities but is evil in his heart or a setting such as the mountain home in "The Piazza," which seems at first to be like a fairyland, to analyze the point Melville is making.

Essay Topic 3

Melville employs a wide variety of stylistic techniques in his writing, including a poetic use of repetition. In "I and My Chimney," for example, he writes of " . . . a mysterious door, entering to a mysterious closet; and here I keep mysterious cordials of a choice, mysterious flavor." In your essay, analyze this and other examples of artful repetition you find in these stories.

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