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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. In what year was the Indian Removal Act enacted?

2. In what year did Sedgwick’s paternal family arrive in Massachusetts?

3. The comment that “the panther watching her young is as fearful as a doe” (96) offers an example of which of the following?

4. Which of the following does Karcher exempt from her discussion of family lost in massacre (21)?

5. How many, including Mononotto, attack Bethel?

Short Essay Questions

1. Which historical antecedent does Karcher identify for Faith Leslie?

2. In what way, per Karcher (27), do “‘Friendly’ whites like Hope and Everell” imperil native peoples?

3. What justification for revenge is accorded to Mononotto (106)?

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

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

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

7. Explain the metaphor in Digby’s comment that “it’s a bad ware that needs a dark store” (104)

8. What reactions does William Fletcher’s reserved manners prompt from his companions aboard the Arabella, and why, per the narrator (60)?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Throughout the novel, the Puritans are described as seeking and loving liberty, often in negative terms. What understand of their liberty does the novel advance? What in the text indicates that understanding? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Karcher notes that “The main imperative of Sedgwick’s era was to create a national literature that differentiated itself from British and European precedents by capitalizing on what made America unique: its landscape, history, folk heroes, regional idiosyncracies [sic], potpourri of races and ethnic groups, and democratic social structure” (12). Does the novel successfully contribute to that imperative? What in the text indicates whether it does or not, and how does it do so?

(see the answer keys)

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