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Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. What does Ryszard find when he goes below to the steerage portion of the ship?
2. Where is the celebration dinner party after Maryna's performance?
3. What other book does Maryna plan to read on the ship?
4. What toast does Maryna offer?
5. What people does Ryszard find to be the most polite people in New York?
Short Essay Questions
1. Who does Ryszard meet in the lounge of a whorehouse in New York City? What is important about the introduction Ryszard makes to the man? What do the two men talk about? What important thing does the man confirm for Ryszard?
2. In Chapter Zero, from whose voice is the story told? Who is the narrator? What does the narrator reveal about herself?
3. How does Maryna relate to Henryk the family doctor in Chapter Two? What is their relationship? How does Maryna feel about him? How does she treat him?
4. As the story opens, the narrator describes the room in which people are conversing and drinking. Who are these people? How does the narrator know them?
5. How do the Saloon passengers gain entry into America? How do the steerage passengers leave the ship? How do Julian and Ryszard leave the ship, and where do they go?
6. In Chapter One, what scene does Maryna give Krystyna to act out? Why?
7. Maryna explains to Henryk why they are traveling to California by ship. What are the reasons? What is the faster way to get to California from New York? How does the trip go?
8. Who does Maryna see in Bremen? What is the purpose of their meeting? How does Maryna feel at the end of the meeting?
9. Maryna relates the story of her childhood to various people in Chapter One. Discuss her childhood and the influences on her life.
10. While he is in the steerage section of the ship, Ryszard is brought by a deckhand to meet a bedraggled man. This man offers his niece, Nora, to Ryszard. What kinds of emotions does Ryszard have while below the ship in steerage? How does this experience change him?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Ryszard thinks a great deal about class and privilege while on board the Germania on his way to America. Is the ship an analogy of a social system in America? Discuss this analogy and how accurate it is for America during the late nineteenth century as described in the novel.
Essay Topic 2
Why has the author chosen to tell about the demise of the commune through Bogdan's journal? How does he give an adequate account of what happened?
Essay Topic 3
When Bogdan and Maryna go to say farewell to Bogdan's grandmother the Countess, she gives them this piece of advice: "don't invent too many reasons for what you have decided to do!" Have Bogdan and Maryna invented many reasons? What are they? Why are they going to America?
This section contains 1,194 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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