CommonLit: The Wives of the Dead
1. PART A: Which of the following best describes a central idea of the text?
A How people respond to loss, often coming together
B What we think we know to be true and the truth
C The afterlife and the possibility of ghosts
D The effects of guilt

2. PART B: Which paragraph best supports the answer to Part A?
A Paragraph 1
B Paragraph 5
C Paragraph 8
D Paragraph 16

3. What does the dialogue between Mary and Margaret, as well as paragraphs 1-5, reveal about their characters? Cite evidence from the text.

4. PART A: How do the deaths of their husbands affect the relationship between Mary and Margaret?
A They comfort each other but prefer to mourn separately.
B They share in their grief and become closer.
C Without their husbands as links between them, they drift apart.
D They discover how different their personalities are, which drives them apart.

5. PART B: Which quote best supports the answer to Part A?
A “Two young and comely women sat together by the fireside, nursing their mutual and peculiar sorrows.” ( paragraph 1)
B “She now shrunk from Mary’s words, like a wounded sufferer from a hand that revives the throb.” ( paragraph 3)
C “United, as they had been, by the relationship of the living, and now more closely so by that of the dead, each felt as if whatever consolation her grief admitted, were to be found in the bosom of the other.” ( paragraph 1)
D “Yet she trembled at these rebellious expressions, almost as soon as they were uttered, and, by degrees, Mary succeeded in bringing her sister’s mind nearer to the situation of her own.” ( paragraph 5)

6. PART A: As used in paragraph 3, what does the word “lamentation” mean?
A An expression of mourning or grief
B An expression of fear or foreboding
C A sound expressed as a result of hunger
D A complaint of being poorly treated

7. PART B: Which phrase from paragraphs 2-3 provides the best support for the answer to Part A?
A “you have not eaten a morsel”
B “lively and irritable”
C “shrunk from Mary’s words”
D “like a wounded sufferer”

8. What do the sisters’ inner thoughts, following the visits in the night, reveal about the passage’s theme?
A Willingness to lie in order to protect others
B Sorrow can be lifted
C An innate selfishness of people (i. e. when the sisters experience joy)
D Familial guilt, compassion, and duty

9.Compare and contrast the imagery used in each scene when the sisters learn of their husbands’ survival. How does this imagery relate to the structure of the story?

10. Which statement best answers the question: how does the imagery used throughout the text contribute to the mood?
A It creates a dream-like, almost supernatural quality
B It emphasizes a sense of loss and ending
C It reflects inner turmoil
D All of the above