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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 narrator do while John is gone?

2. How much time passes before the narration continues after it suddenly stopped in the first section?

3. Where does her shoulder “just” fit?

4. Who or what does think is shaking the wallpaper?

5. Who is the housekeeper?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who does John tell the narrator is the only person who can truly help her out of her sickness?

2. What doesn’t the narrator mind about the nursery at first?

3. What does this quote suggest: “It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please.”

4. Why does the narrator say John “pretended to be loving and kind”?

5. How does the narrator think the “smooch” on the wall was created?

6. The narrator briefly considers jumping out the window. Why does she decide against it?

7. What major life event has the narrator just endured?

8. Why does it bother the narrator that she cannot read or write while recuperating?

9. What does what John calls the narrator in the middle of the nightsuggest about their relationship?

10. Why does John threaten to send the narrator to Weir Mitchell?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The story is written in the first-person from the narrator who is suffering a mental illness. How does the narrator’s writing and style change as the story progresses? What, in the writing, is indicative that the narrator is not well?

Essay Topic 2

How does the narrator’s perception of her husband change? What is the evidence of this within the text?

Essay Topic 3

Often, the narrator mentions that the nursery is more like an insane asylum rather than a nursery. What physical descriptions support this idea?

(see the answer keys)

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