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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 does Marya say her marriage to Sergey affects her relationship with the world?

2. What topics does Sergey capture Marya's curiosity about?

3. How much was Ivan Ilych given for moving expenses to get to his Court of Justice appointment?

4. Who is Vanyusha?

5. What rekindled Eugene Irtenev's love for his wife?

Short Essay Questions

1. What causes Sergey and Marya's relationship to blossom?

2. What does Dmitri Olenin think he will find in the Caucasus?

3. Describe the beginning of Marya's relationship with Sergey.

4. What is the relationship between the Grebensk Cossacks and the Muslim Tartars?

5. What happens to end the truce between Ivan Ilych and Praskovya Federovna?

6. Describe Dmitri's departure from the Caucasus.

7. What role do Liza Annenskaya's pregnancies play in "The Devil"?

8. Who is Eugene Irtenev and where does he live at the beginning of the story?

9. How does Praskovya Federovna's bad temper affect Ivan Ilych?

10. Describe the promotions Ivan Ilych receives.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Is Tolstoy's literary universe a chaotic one, as people say modern life is chaotic or random--or is it organized around some law or consistency? What law Tolstoy's fictional world organized around?

Essay Topic 2

How does Tolstoy treat the relationship between Russians and others--Chechen, Tartars, Cossacks, Turks? What make Russians Russian? What distinguishes them from the others, and what is the basis for hostility when there his hostility? What stance does Tolstoy take in presenting these relationships? (Sympathetic, critical, nationalistic?)

Essay Topic 3

To what extent are Tolstoy's stories allegories? How do characters and events in the stories map to values and ideas in the allegory? Explain the allegorical significance of two of Tolstoy's stories.

(see the answer keys)

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