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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 the note from Basil to Lord Ferris ask?

2. How does Richard kill Brent?

3. How did Alec once try to kill himself?

4. How many terms has Lady Halliday's husband served in the Council of Lords?

5. How does Michael feel about the Duchess?

Short Essay Questions

1. What explanation does Lord Ferris give Katherine for asking her to stay with himself, Lord Horn, and Basil?

2. What is Alec's advice to Richard about the job Richard has been offered?

3. Why are Lady Mary Halliday and Duchess Tremontaine annoyed when Lady Godwin and her son arrive?

4. Why is the idea of becoming a swordsman a joke for Michael?

5. What does Richard tell Katherine about Alec's background?

6. Describe what Michael overhears between Michael's casual male lover and the woman Michael has just slept with.

7. What interferes with Ferris speaking privately with Basil after their dinner together?

8. Why does Michael originally decide that he will sleep with Lord Horn?

9. What is Michael's relationship with Vincent Applethorpe?

10. What happens when Alec wakes Richard during the night, after Richard's meeting with Katherine?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the play "The Swordman's Tragedy" within the novel.

1) What does the play reflect about the novel itself? Why does the author include it?

2) How do the different characters react to the superstitions surrounding the play? How do the existence of these superstitions affect the reader?

3) How does Richard perceive the play? What is his point of view about the play before seeing it and after watching it?

Essay Topic 2

Several characters move between social classes in the novel. Discuss moving between social classes in Swordspoint.

1) How does Katherine move out of Riverside and to the Hill? What is the cost and benefit of this move? Why does she make it? How does it change her life and status?

2) How does Alec move out of the Hill and into Riverside? What is the cost and benefit of this move? Why does he make it? How does it change his life and status?

3) How does Richard, as a swordsman, move between the upper and lower classes?

Essay Topic 3

Richard, as a swordsman, has a violent and even bloodthirsty role in the novel. Discuss violence and death in the novel.

1) How does the society look at death? How seriously does the society take death and violence?

2) What power does Richard's ability to inflict death give him? What other characters gain power through death and violence?

3) How is violence viewed differently by the different social classes in the novel?

(see the answer keys)

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