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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. Which of the following does Karcher note typifies Sedgwick’s notion of “peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial exchanges of goods and services” (22) between indigenous and settler populations?

2. In the context of the novel, the term “congeniality” carries which of the following meanings (53)?

3. In what year does William Fletcher emigrate to New England?

4. The comment that “the little girl received it from him as passively as the young bird takes food from its mother” (127) offers an example of which of the following?

5. The comment that “Such men, inexperienced in the business of life, are like children” (60) offers an example of which of the following?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Sir William charge his nephew to do to be able to marry Alice?

2. What reasons does the novel note for William Fletcher to have “fixed his residence a mile from the village” (62)?

3. What is the primary rhetorical appeal made in Karcher’s discussion of Sedgwick’s Redwood (17-18), and why is it the primary appeal?

4. What does Karcher identify as the primary thrust of the Calvinist theology under which Sedgwick was raised (15)?

5. Prior to the attack on Bethel, how does Digby note that Everell and Oneco ridicule Grafton (108)?

6. What does Karcher identify as the primary thrust and intent of the seduction plot, which had been the focus of the American women novelists prior to Sedgwick (12)?

7. Why does Karcher relate one early critic as stating that Sedgwick provides for early American women writers (10)?

8. With what do Everell and Digby entertain themselves while on watch against attack (92)?

9. What does Karcher point out as a major contrast between Sedgwick’s depictions of indigenous / settler violence and her contemporaries’, such as Cooper (21)?

10. What does Karcher identify as the primary thrust of the Unitarianism to which Sedgwick converts (16)?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider Winthrop’s comment that “private feelings must yield to the public good” (290). Does the novel as a whole agree or disagree with the comment? What text supports that position? How does it support the position?

Essay Topic 2

What is the significance of Karcher’s comment that “Sedgwick won not only the adulation of her female successors but the respect of her male peers[sic]” (10)? What in the text and in experience indicates that significance? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Early in the novel, the comment is made that “Liberty….from the hour that she tempted our first parents to forfeit paradise, hath ever worked mischief to our race” (52). Does the novel affirm or deny the assertion? What in the text indicates it? How does it do so?

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