View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did one of the members of John's company have attached to his helmet?

2. What was John's nickname in Vietnam?

3. What does John promise Kathy they will take on their travels?

4. Who is Harmon?

5. How would you describe Eleanor Wade's contributions to Chapter 2?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did John lose the election?

2. What did John tell himself about what he did to Weatherby?

3. What is the narrator's hypothesis in Chapter 14?

4. What happens shortly after John got this letter from Kathy?

5. What do we hear about Weatherby that adds to what we heard about earlier?

6. What do we know about the night of the boiling plants?

7. What did John discover when he returned from the war?

8. What additional information do we get about the night of the boiling plants?

9. What is the problem with the hypothesis in Chapter 14?

10. What limits are imposed on the omniscience of the narrator?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

To what extent is this book an allegory? To what extent is it bound in time as a product of the Vietnam War? If it is an allegory, what is it an allegory for? What experiences are at the heart of it? What eternal fact of the human heart does this allegory introduce us to?

Essay Topic 2

To what degree is this book internally consistent? How much does it follow the rules it lays out for its own unfolding?

Essay Topic 3

Is Lake of the Woods a uniquely American book? What makes it American, or in what way is it something else? Is it international or supra-national?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 686 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample