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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. With which of the following does Hope Leslie gift Antonio?

2. The comment that “In short, she was the petted lamb of the fold” (174) offers an example of which of the following?

3. What does Gardiner comment “that rosebuds, in the vocabulary of flowers, are made to signify” (267)?

4. Who is king when Gardiner arrives in Boston?

5. What does the novel report as the reason Esther Downing’s father refuses to come to New England (260)?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reasons does Gardiner give for Everell to mistrust his initial identification of Hope Leslie?

2. What are the “Indian riches” in the hut where Magawisca and Faith Leslie are confined after the retreat from Bethel (140)?

3. What reasons does Gardiner note for betraying Magawisca as Hope Leslie meets with her and her own sister?

4. Whom does the narrator remark meet on equal footing in Sabbath services (213)?

5. What justification does the narrator give for the description of “a pilgrim mansion” (197) in the terms used in the novel?

6. Why are Winthrop’s indigenous guests offended at the dinner when Everell and Gardiner arrive in Boston?

7. What physical signs indicate Esther Downing’s upset after she and Hope Leslie return to the Winthrop residence after the reunion with Everell (186)?

8. What reasons does Gardiner write for preferring Hope Leslie as a potential love interest?

9. What does Gardiner posit as justification for Madam Winthrop inveighing against laughter (265)?

10. What reasons does Everell give on Digby’s island for thinking that Hope Leslie is enamored of Gardiner?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Sedgwick, in her own preface to the novel, notes that her intention “was to illustrate not the history, but the character of the times” (48). Which is more important for understanding? What in experience suggests that it is so, and how does it suggest it?

Essay Topic 2

Karcher remarks that one of Sedgwick’s characters in an earlier novel identifies Calvinist doctrine as promoting crimes, since neither good nor evil actions matter for salvation (16). Does Hope Leslie support that assertion? What in the text indicates that it does or not, and how does it indicate it?

Essay Topic 3

The narrator makes the comment that “we would fix our eyes on the bright halo that encircled the pilgrims’ head; and not mark the dust that sometimes sullied his garments” (sic, 211). Does the novel as a whole endorse taking such a position? What in the text suggests whether it does or not? How does it do so?

(see the answer keys)

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