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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. Toward what location is Ava driving when she finds that she has missed a number of calls about Grandma Martha?

2. From whom does Ava receive a call telling her that her mother Gladys is in the hospital?

3. Which other character is in the car with Ava when she finds a series of missed calls about Grandma Martha?

4. Which farm animal of Josephine's is mysteriously killed soon after Vern's visit to Major and Eliza's house?

5. How many friends attend Grandma Martha's book club meeting?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Josephine deal with the loneliness she experiences during one particular period of 1924?

2. Discuss an instance when Sexton uses a literary device to indicate a contrast between two characters.

3. How does Ava react to her mother Gladys's revelation about her visions of Josephine?

4. What news does Ava receive when she is awakened out of a deep sleep by a troubling phone call?

5. For what reason does Missus gather together all of Wildwood's slaves one day after she becomes pregnant?

6. What does Ava mean when she tells the reader that King "doesn't know [Grandma Martha] called him colored" and that he "doesn't know that she was looking for cabins" (198)?

7. Discuss an instance of foreshadowing within the text.

8. In what way does the theme of collectivism arise within the scenes of the Revisioners drawing rocks?

9. What is the "Travis plot" (122) discussed by Domingo prior to the family's escape attempt?

10. Whose influence does Eliza tell Josephine is leading her husband Major to make bad decisions?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Sexton's choice to tell the story of The Revisioners using the first person accounts of both Ava and Josephine. What elements of the novel's themes lend themselves to this choice and what are Sexton’s intended effects on the reader?

Essay Topic 2

William Faulkner once famously claimed that the most important literature deals with the subject of the human heart in conflict with itself. Explain how the theme of Human versus Self is demonstrated within Sexton’s novel The Revisioners. Create a decisive, arguable claim and prove it with quotes from the novel.

Essay Topic 3

What ultimate message is Sexton sending about the nature of aging?

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