Test Your Literary Insight

A dramatic illustration depicting a character in a hospital setting, a trapeze artist, and elements of fire and rescue to symbolize tension and suspense in a narrative.

Test Your Literary Insight

Welcome to our quiz designed to challenge your comprehension and critical thinking skills! Dive into thought-provoking questions based on a captivating story, and explore the layers of meaning behind the text.

You'll encounter questions that cover various aspects of the narrative, including:

Character motivations
Plot development
Symbolism and themes

7 Questions2 MinutesCreated by ExploringWords22

Which detail from the story helps create suspense?

�It was during her confinement in the hospital that my mother met my father.”

�She used the phone, then ran outside to stand beneath my window.”

�I owe her my existence three times.”

They sat. They ate caramelized popcorn and roasted peanuts.”

When the narrator says in lines 151–152, “I wonder if my father calculated the exchange he offered: one form of flight for another,” she means that

A reading offered her mother a different type of thrill.

Once her parents married, they flew frequently.

Her father found freedom in his marriage

Her mother never took another flight in her life.

What attracted the narrator’s father to Anna?

A She was a trapeze artist.

She wanted to live in New Hampshire

She could not read.

She had traveled the world

What motivates the narrator to return home?

Pity for her mother’s inability to cope with her blindness

B the desire to help her mother as her mother has helped her

The need for financial security

Disillusionment with her own life

Which detail helps you visualize the difficulty of Anna’s rescue of her daughter?

�Outside, my mother stood below my dark window and saw clearly that there was no rescue.”

�Flames had pierced one side wall, and the glare of the fire lighted the massive limbs and trunk of the vigorous old elm. . . .”

�She was hanging by the backs of her heels from the new gutter we had put in that year. . . .”

D “The wind roared and beat its hot breath at our back, the flames whistled.”

. At the end of the story, why does the narrator mention twice that she was embarrassed by her mother’s lack of clothing?

She feels ashamed now of her feelings then.

She still wishes her mother hadn’t removed her dress.

She now realizes how cold her mother was.

She has vowed never to be like her mother.

Which statement lists the events in the correct sequence?

Anna rescues the narrator; the narrator returns home; the narrator’s father dies.

Anna marries a second time; the narrator returns home; Anna becomes blind.

The narrator returns home; the narrator’s father dies; Anna rescues the narrator from a fire.

Anna survives her circus fall; Anna rescues the narrator; the narrator returns home

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