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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. What does Charles realize when Lucas notices him?

2. What does Uncle Gavin and the Sheriff want the boys to do?

3. What kind of wood is the coffin made from?

4. What does Lucas send to Charles in return for Charles sending his wife a dress?

5. What does Paralee's father say men concentrate too much on?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Sheriff Hampton so reluctant to react to Charles story about the mule?

2. In what way does Charles show he is the epiphany of a southern gentleman in chapter four?

3. What is Charles' attitude towards his black servant Aleck Sander?

4. Why are the black prisoners so quiet the night Lucas is taken into the prison?

5. Describe the ride to the cemetery.

6. How does Charles still know that he still owes Lucas a debt?

7. Why does Charles have trouble sleeping?

8. What is Uncle Gavin opinion on Lucas' request to dig up the dead body?

9. Why does Miss Habersham help Lucas out?

10. In what way does chapter five show the importance of women in southern American life?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Throughout the story Charles thinks he owes Lucas a favor and there are also many references to the southern gentlemen code. What is the southern gentlemen code? In what way does Faulkner present the southern gentlemen code as a backward and damaging tradition? In what ways do you think the characters and setting would lose and gain from the breakdown of the code?

Essay Topic 2

Examine the relationship between Aleck and Charles. Do you think they are more friends than master and servant? What does that say about the changing racial attitudes in south at that time? How different do you think there relationship would of changed if they met again today?

Essay Topic 3

Intruder in the Dust is part of the southern Gothic genre.

1) What are the conventions of the southern Gothic genre in terms of character, language and plot?

2) In what way does Intruder in the Dust subvert the southern Gothic genre?

(see the answer keys)

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