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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 falls from between the pages of a book when Nella is snooping around in the library?

2. Who is heard giggling in the shadows during Marin and Nella's first meeting?

3. What does Johannes tell Nella that no one can really do with his wealth?

4. How old is Johannes at the time of his and Nella's wedding?

5. What is Marin's reply when Nella asks about Bergen, Norway?

Short Essay Questions

1. What warning does Otto issue to Nella concerning her parakeet and Marin?

2. How do Nella's expectations of Marin's reaction differ from Marin's real reaction when Nella tells her about Johannes's homosexuality?

3. For what reason is Nella reluctant to answer Agnes's question about who made Nella's miniatures?

4. What does Nella mean when she opines that "home is nowhere" (114) for her now?

5. Describe Nella's first kiss with Johannes.

6. How do Marin's and Nella's views of Nella's situation in the Brandt household differ?

7. What is Nella's mother's reply when Nella says she does not want to be the kind of wife that behaves as the "rams and ewes of Assendelft" (26) do?

8. How does Marin hurt Nella physically and why?

9. What does Nella's parakeet Peebo symbolize?

10. What is Johannes's reply when Nella asks him whether they are rich?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Sensory details are used frequently by the author in order to create vivid pictures of Nella's world in Seventeenth-Century Holland. Choose three scenes in which sensory details are heavily used and discuss how the sensory details used by the author set a particular mood for each of the three scenes.

Essay Topic 2

What is the novel's message regarding the role of religion in Seventeenth-Century Holland?

Essay Topic 3

What is the author's message regarding motherhood and femininity and what themes does the author employ in order to send these messages to the reader?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,051 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample