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 does Kitty ask Will to do?

2. What memory is triggered for Will when he's hunting out of bounds balls during the fivesome game of golf?

3. What literary character does Allison feel like?

4. What perfume does Allison's mother, Kitty, wear?

5. What is Ed Cupp's relationship to Will Barrett?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Allison talk to the man in the garage of Washau Motors about?

2. Why does Will choose Sutter Vaught to be the beneficiary of his life insurance?

3. What does Allison realize that she forgot to ask when she arrives at Washau Motors?

4. What kind of shady business proposition does Ewell McBee make to Will?

5. What restores the "missing ninety-eight percent" of Will's personality?

6. Why does Allison buy herself new clothes when she gets to Linwood?

7. Why is Allison hesitant to take the gift Will brings her?

8. What is Will unhappy about during the game of golf with Ed Cupp, Bernie Peabody, Lewis Peckham, and Jimmy Rogers?

9. Why does Will obsess over how many shots his father fired on the hunting trip they took together?

10. Why doesn't Will do anything about the poacher on his land?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the novel, Allison has lost her memory because of the treatments she received at the mental institution and Will has repressed some troubling memories from his childhood that keep returning to him when he has his spells. Write an essay discussing the theme of memory from the novel, comparing and contrasting how different characters' memories shape the plot and affect how we as a reader react to those characters.

Essay Topic 2

Several of the characters in the novel are very religious; two are men of the cloth. Discuss the significance of religion in the novel. Does religion help shape the plot? Does it play a major role in the character development? What about the central conflict of the novel? Does religion play a role in that as well?

Essay Topic 3

Walker Percy revisits several themes or motifs throughout the novel including: memory, mental illness, self-discovery, independence, religion, nature, and love. Can you think of other themes or motifs from the novel? Write an essay discussing the most important theme or motif from the novel; that is, the one you think the author discusses the most or seems to feature as being the most important. Provide examples from the text to support your argument.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 738 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample