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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. Connell reflects upon the fact that "the substance that makes the world real" (165) is what?

2. To what location do Miss Neary and Connell travel together after running into each other at a club?

3. In what month of 2013 do Marianne and Helen first meet?

4. What action does the destroyer of Marianne's coupe champagne glass take just after the glass shatters?

5. Marianne confesses to Connell that Jamie is a what?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is the motif of violence depicted within Connell's feelings about Jamie?

2. What does it mean to Marianne when she wins the full scholarship to graduate school, according to Connell?

3. What happens to foil Connell's Plan B for staying in Dublin over the summer?

4. Describe Helen's impressions of Marianne.

5. How does Connell come to rely on Marianne in college?

6. Discuss Rooney's use of a literary device to depict, foreshadow, or imply violence.

7. What is Connell doing in July of 2013?

8. When Connell finds that he will not be able to pay rent over the summer in his Dublin flat, what is his back-up plan?

9. What aspect of Connell and Marianne's high school relationship remains intact in their adult relationship?

10. What is ironic about the impression Connell has of Alan?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

William Faulkner once famously claimed that the most important literature deals with the subject of the human heart in conflict with itself. Explain how the theme of Human versus Self is demonstrated within Rooney’s novel Normal People. Create a decisive, arguable claim and prove it with quotes from the novel.

Essay Topic 2

Analyze Rooney’s focus on the theme of control in Normal People. What message is Rooney sending about the desire to control and to be controlled?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss Rooney's choice to tell the story of Normal People using a third person omniscient narrator. What elements of the novel's themes lend themselves to this choice and what are Rooney’s intended effects on the reader?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,006 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample