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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 are the descriptions of Bird House in the Epilogue meant to convey?

2. What is the name of the man Beth is seeing in 2005?

3. In her February 15th email, what does Lorelei reveal about her plan to come visit Jim?

4. When Beth and Meg are lying in the hammock and talking, what does Beth say she remembers from around the time that Rhys died?

5. What interrupted Lorelei's plan to talk to Rhys on Easter about what had happened the night before?

Short Essay Questions

1. What obstacle prevents Lorelei and Jim from spending time together in person, and how does Jim propose they deal with this issue?

2. When Rory arrives at Bird House in Chapter 14, how do his feelings about Lorelei and the house contrast with his memories of his childhood feelings?

3. In Chapter 9, what Easter gift does Beth's boyfriend give her, and why does she feel the way she does about this gift?

4. How does Beth describe her last couple of years in Australia to Bill when they talk on the way to pick Bill's kids up from school?

5. What is Vicky's perspective on the way Lorelei helps her during her illness?

6. What does Lorelei's Chapter 16 email to Jim reveal happened between her and Rhys on the night before Rhys's death?

7. In her Chapter 8 email to Jim, what claim does Lorelei make about the cleanliness of her home, and how is this contradicted by evidence elsewhere in the text?

8. What assurance does Lorelei offer Jim about their relationship and his drinking, and how does this relate to her own struggles with hoarding?

9. What argument does the family have about Rhys during dinner in Chapter 14, and how does Meg settle the argument?

10. What caused Meg to kick Bill out in 2003, and what was the result?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose one idea associated with Easter Sunday--religious or secular--and show how this idea is developed through the text's focus on the Bird family's celebrations of Easter. (Note that you are tracing an idea, like "rebirth," "salvation," or "springtime," not a tradition, object, etc., like "Easter egg hunts.") Trace the development of this idea throughout the text and show how this symbolic association illuminates important aspects of the Bird family's story. Support your claims with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

Essay Topic 2

In one lesson, you made predictions about how the novel would end based on whether the Birds can learn to follow Vicky's advice and "Look after each other" (313). Now that you have read the novel's actual ending, do you think that the family members have or have not been able to follow Vicky's advice? What evidence is there in the text to support your interpretation? Write an essay in which you use the novel's final chapters to make a case for or against the idea that the Birds have finally learned how to support and nurture one another.

Essay Topic 3

What is the function of the incest motif in The House We Grew Up In? How does it impact the reader's understanding of the characters and their struggles in life? How does it convey messages about healthy and unhealthy family relationships? Write an essay in which you describe how this motif is developed in the lives of the various family members, analyze the nature of this alleged "incest," and then advance a theory about what purpose Jewell intends the motif to serve. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from diction, details, narrative perspective, and plot.

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