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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does Lady Bradeen stop using the main character's telegraph office?
(a) She suspects the main character of having a crush on Captain Everard.
(b) She understands that the main character is watching her.
(c) She is sure the main character has stolen from her.
(d) She moves away.

2. What does Dencombe find when he reads his new book?
(a) He despairs.
(b) He is confused.
(c) He cannot pay attention to it.
(d) He is impressed.

3. Who relies on the main character for support?
(a) Her sister.
(b) Her mother.
(c) Her father.
(d) Her fiancee.

4. Who is the main character?
(a) A Countess.
(b) A telegraph operator.
(c) A factory girl.
(d) A clerk.

5. Why does the main character refuse the fiancee's offer?
(a) It would not be respectable to move to his neighborhood.
(b) She is anxious to leave her job.
(c) She likes being close to the upper class.
(d) He cannot support her mother as well as her.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does James say a damsel in a small village can write about, if she is someone on whom nothing is lost?

2. What is the young man, whom Dencombe sees approaching, doing?

3. What is Miss Staverton's relationship with Spencer Brydon?

4. How does James characterize Spencer Brydon's lifestyle all these years?

5. What does May Bartram buy in London?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the meeting of Captain Everard and the telegraph operator.

2. What is the irony in the secret Marcher has been keeping all these years?

3. Describe Marcher's lifestyle.

4. What is the telegraph operator's fiancée asking her to do?

5. What is the significance of the setting in 'The Middle Years'?

6. What is the significance of the title of this story?

7. What did James study before he took to writing, and how did this influence his writing?

8. What is unique about the narration of 'In the Cage'?

9. What does Marcher realize when May Bartram dies?

10. How does James address the superstition that fiction is diabolical?

(see the answer keys)

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