A New England Nun quiz
By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
A woman one month from her wedding, after a fifteen-year engagement, must choose between a promise and the quiet life she has come to love
25 questions · about 26 minutes
Questions and answers
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Question 1. Which literary genre best describes "A New England Nun"?
- Gothic Horror
- Correct answer: Local Color Realism
- Sentimental Romance
- Literary Naturalism
- Modernist Fiction
Local Color Realism is the best fit. Local color writing, also called regionalism, is realistic fiction that records the speech, habits and daily life of one place. Freeman shows a farming village through haying, harvest fields, stone walls, village opinion and the country speech of Joe and Lily, and her drama is an ordinary one: whether a quiet woman will marry.
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Question 2. In the opening scene Louisa puts away her sewing and stems currants for her tea. What do these details most strongly suggest about her?
- Correct answer: She is careful and exact in even the smallest of her daily tasks
- She is hurried and anxious to finish before her guest arrives
- She is bored by housework and longs for a livelier evening
- She is poor and must save every scrap of food and thread
Louisa "quilted her needle carefully into her work, which she folded precisely", and she cannot remember ever mislaying her thimble, thread or scissors. After stemming the currants she looks sharply at the grass to see whether a single stem has fallen there. She is slow and still in her movements, not hurried, and she is at peace in these small tasks. The narrator says her sewing tools have become "a very part of her personality".
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Question 3. Which habit of Louisa's do her neighbors whisper about among themselves?
- That she wears one apron over another
- That she sews seams only to rip them out
- Correct answer: That she uses her china every day
- That she has waited too long to marry
Louisa used china every day, "something which none of her neighbors did". Their best china stayed in the parlor closet, and "Louisa Ellis was no richer nor better bred than they". The narrator adds, "Still she would use the china." She does wear layered aprons and she has ripped a seam for the pleasure of sewing it again, but the story does not say the neighbors know or talk about either one. The china shows that she lives by her own standards, whatever the village thinks.
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Question 4. What fruit does Louisa pick in her garden for her tea?
- Wild grapes
- Blackberries
- Blueberries
- Correct answer: Currants
She goes into the garden with a little blue crockery bowl to pick currants, stems them on the back door-step, and eats them sugared from a glass dish. The other three plants appear later, on her moonlit walk: blueberry shrubs and blackberry vines grow beside the stone wall, and she wonders whether the sweetness in the air is wild grapes.
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Question 5. After Joe's visit, the narrator compares him to a bear leaving a china shop and Louisa to the shop's owner. What does the comparison show?
- Joe is a rough man who takes pleasure in upsetting Louisa's rooms
- Correct answer: Joe means no harm, yet he does not fit Louisa's fragile, orderly world
- Louisa is angry with Joe and means to scold him at his next visit
- Louisa is afraid of Joe and locks her door as soon as he has gone
The bear is "an innocent and perfectly well-intentioned bear", and Louisa is "the kind-hearted, long-suffering owner of the china shop". Neither is at fault. Joe has only moved two books, tripped on a rug and knocked over a work-basket, but in Louisa's room every small disturbance counts, and he feels there "as if surrounded by a hedge of lace". The simile shows two decent people who are a poor fit for each other.
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Question 6. Match the term to its meaning in the story: Louisa's first emotion when Joe came home "was consternation".
- Quiet relief that a long time of waiting is over
- Deep thought given to a matter before deciding it
- Steady resolve to carry a hard duty through to the end
- Correct answer: Sudden dismay and alarm that leaves a person upset
Consternation is sudden dismay or alarm. Joe comes home without telling Louisa he is coming, and her first feeling is not joy or relief but dismay, although she will not admit it to herself. The word tells the reader early that the marriage she has waited for now fills her with alarm.
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Question 7. How long has the courtship of Louisa and Joe lasted, and how much of that time did they spend apart?
- Fourteen years, with Joe away in Australia for seven
- Correct answer: Fifteen years, with Joe away in Australia for fourteen
- Fifteen years, with Joe away in Australia for all fifteen
- Fourteen years, with Joe away in Australia for all fourteen
The narrator calls it "a singular courtship which had lasted for a matter of fifteen years" and adds, "For fourteen out of the fifteen years the two had not once seen each other". Joe left for Australia shortly after they were engaged and stayed until he had made his fortune. That is why he speaks of a woman who has waited for him fourteen years.
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Question 8. Where did Joe Dagget go to make his fortune?
- California
- South Africa
- Correct answer: Australia
- New Zealand
Joe spent fourteen years in Australia, where he stayed until his fortune was made. In all that time he and Louisa did not see each other once, and "they had seldom exchanged letters".
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Question 9. The narrator calls one change during Joe's absence the greatest happening of all. Which is it?
- Correct answer: Louisa settled into a way of life with no room for another
- Louisa's mother and brother died and left her all alone
- Louisa fell out of love with Joe and in love with another
- Louisa's brother chained up the dog that had bitten a neighbor
The deaths of Louisa's mother and brother are told first, but the narrator sets something else above them: the "greatest happening of all" is that Louisa's feet had turned into a path "so narrow that there was no room for any one at her side". The change is so quiet that she and Joe are both too simple to understand it. She never thought of marrying anyone else. She simply grew into her solitary life.
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Question 10. Which of these must Louisa give up if she marries Joe?
- Her dog, since Joe's mother will not have him near
- Her canary, since Joe cannot abide its fluttering
- Her china, since Joe's mother thinks it too fine
- Correct answer: Her own house, since Joe will not leave his mother
Joe could not desert his mother, who refused to leave her old home. "So Louisa must leave hers." In the homestead she expects a large house to care for, company to entertain and Joe's mother to wait upon. Her little still must be laid away, and there would be small chance of sewing for the mere pleasure of it. Her fear about the dog is different: she is afraid Joe will set him loose, not that she will lose him.
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Question 11. What does Louisa make with her little still in summer weather?
- Cordials of currant, cherry and grape
- Correct answer: Essences of rose, peppermint and spearmint
- Syrups of maple, blackberry and blueberry
- Vinegars of apple, raspberry and cherry
A still is a small apparatus for distilling. Louisa uses hers to draw the sweet and aromatic essences from roses, peppermint and spearmint, purely because she enjoys it. Her store of essences is already considerable, and Joe's mother has hinted that she thinks the pastime foolish.
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Question 12. How does Joe's opinion of Caesar, the chained dog, differ from Louisa's?
- Joe thinks him dangerous and wants him sold; Louisa believes he is harmless
- Joe thinks him too old to keep; Louisa believes he is still a fine watchdog
- Correct answer: Joe thinks him gentle and wants him loose; Louisa believes he is dangerous
- Joe thinks him spoiled by rich food; Louisa believes he is half starved
Joe sees the dog as he is. He says, "There ain't a better-natured dog in town", calls it "down-right cruel" to keep him tied, and promises to take him out some day. Louisa is fond of the old dog, but "still she had great faith in his ferocity" and pictures him on the rampage through the village. The dog bit a neighbor when hardly out of puppyhood, and Louisa's brother chained him for it fourteen years ago. Joe never does let him loose.
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Question 13. Match the term to its meaning in the story: Louisa feeds her dog on "ascetic fare of corn-mush and cakes".
- Correct answer: Plain and strict, allowing no rich food or comfort
- Pleasing to the eye, arranged with a sense of beauty
- Sharp and sour in taste, like vinegar or green fruit
- Rich and plentiful, set out as if for a holiday feast
Ascetic means plain, strict and self-denying, in the way of a person who gives up comforts for the sake of discipline. The dog's diet is corn-mush and cakes, with no meat. Do not confuse the word with aesthetic, which has to do with beauty, or with acidic, which has to do with sourness.
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Question 14. Louisa dreads the marriage. Why does she go on sewing her wedding clothes anyway?
- She believes the village would scorn a woman who sent a faithful man away
- She believes she is too old to find another husband if she refuses Joe now
- Correct answer: She believes Joe has worked for her all these years and will not break his heart
- She believes her mother's dying wish was that she should marry Joe Dagget
No fear of disorder, of the dog loose or of her canary's fluttering is enough to turn her. The narrator gives her reasoning: "Joe Dagget had been fond of her and working for her all these years." It was not for her "to prove untrue and break his heart". She keeps her word out of loyalty and a sense of duty, not out of fear of gossip or of being left unmarried.
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Question 15. In the conversation Louisa overhears, what do Joe and Lily Dyer agree that Joe must do?
- Tell Louisa the truth and let her decide for herself
- Put off the wedding until Lily has gone from the village
- Leave the village with Lily before the wedding day comes
- Correct answer: Marry Louisa as he promised, because honor requires it
Joe and Lily have let on how they feel about each other, yet both insist that he keep his promise. Joe says, "I ain't going back on a woman that's waited for me fourteen years, an' break her heart." Lily is just as firm: "Honor's honor, an' right's right." Neither of them plans to tell Louisa anything, and the wedding is to go ahead the next week.
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Question 16. In that same conversation, what does Lily Dyer say she will do?
- Stay on with Joe's mother and never speak of it again
- Correct answer: Go away in two days, and never marry any other man
- Go away for a year, and marry the first good man who asks
- Stay in the village and wait to see if Louisa changes her mind
Lily has made up her mind to leave: "I'm going day after to-morrow." When Joe hopes she will find somebody else, she begins to agree, then her tone changes: "I'll never marry any other man as long as I live." She also tells him that she would not have him if he jilted Louisa. The story never says what Lily does after the engagement ends. At the close she simply walks past Louisa's window.
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Question 17. Match the term to its meaning in the story: Louisa fears she may do Joe a terrible injury "should she break her troth-plight".
- Correct answer: A solemn promise to marry; a formal engagement
- A sad or difficult condition that draws pity
- A plain statement of the truth; a frank confession
- A long-held habit that has become hard to give up
A troth-plight is a solemn promise to marry. Here plight means to pledge, not a sad condition, and troth means faith or loyalty. Louisa has meant to keep her promise because she thought breaking it would break Joe's heart. After what she overhears, she can hardly believe that ending the engagement would not hurt him after all.
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Question 18. What reason does Louisa give Joe for ending the engagement?
- She has learned of his feelings for Lily Dyer and will not stand in the way
- She has grown tired of waiting and no longer cares for him at all
- Correct answer: She has lived so long in one way that she shrinks from a change
- She has promised her mother never to leave the house she grew up in
Louisa speaks to Joe the evening after she overhears him. The narrator says, "She never mentioned Lily Dyer." She tells him only that she has no cause of complaint against him, but that "she had lived so long in one way that she shrank from making a change". The reason she gives is true to everything the story has shown of her, and she says nothing that would tell Joe what she heard. Nothing in the story suggests that Joe or Lily ever learns she overheard them.
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Question 19. How does Louisa feel on the night she and Joe part, and on the next morning?
- Correct answer: She weeps a little, hardly knowing why, then wakes like a queen whose realm is safe
- She weeps bitterly over Lily Dyer, then wakes resolved to win Joe back from her
- She sleeps soundly and untroubled, then wakes full of regret for what she has done
- She sits up sewing her wedding clothes, then wakes ashamed of her own cowardice
Alone that night, Louisa "wept a little, she hardly knew why". The next morning she feels "like a queen who, after fearing lest her domain be wrested away from her, sees it firmly insured in her possession". The narrator reports both feelings, the tears and the relief, and does not explain the tears away.
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Question 20. Many readers see Louisa's chained dog and caged canary as symbols. What are they most often read as standing for?
- Joe's years in Australia, which were both hard and lonely
- Lily Dyer's hidden love, which is both strong and hopeless
- The village's gossip, which is both watchful and unkind
- Correct answer: Louisa's own shut-in life, which is both safe and confined
The narrator never says that the animals stand for Louisa. That is a reading, though a very common one. The dog is "a veritable hermit of a dog", described as "shut out from the society of his kind and all innocent canine joys", much as Louisa keeps to herself. The canary flutters wildly, "beating his little yellow wings against the wires", whenever Joe enters the room. When the engagement ends, the dog stays chained and the canary sleeps in peace. Readers can see that as safety, as confinement, or as both.
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Question 21. Near the end, the narrator says that if Louisa had sold her birthright she did not know it. What is the narrator doing in this sentence?
- Alluding to a Bible story and ruling that she has thrown her life away
- Correct answer: Alluding to a Bible story and leaving open whether she lost something great
- Recalling her mother's will and showing that Joe now owns her house
- Recalling her mother's advice and proving she was right to refuse Joe Dagget
The sentence is an allusion, a brief reference to a well-known story. In the Bible, Esau sells his birthright (his rights as the firstborn son) to his brother Jacob for a bowl of pottage, a thick stew. The narrator says, "If Louisa Ellis had sold her birthright she did not know it", because "the taste of the pottage was so delicious". The word if matters. The narrator raises the thought that Louisa may have traded something great for something small, and then does not decide the question.
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Question 22. The last sentence compares Louisa to "an uncloistered nun". What does the comparison mean?
- She has taken religious vows and will soon enter a convent
- She has been shut indoors by a village that disapproves of her
- Correct answer: She lives alone, devoted to her quiet routine, but in her own home
- She spends her days in prayer for the man she has given up
A cloistered nun lives shut inside a convent under religious vows. Louisa is not a nun and there is no convent in the story. The narrator is making a comparison: she lives unmarried, alone and devoted to a daily routine, as a nun might, but in her own house and by her own choice. Just before this, her future days are described as "strung together like pearls in a rosary", the string of beads used for counting prayers. The title points to this closing image.
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Question 23. What is ironic about the engagement of Louisa and Joe in its last weeks?
- Correct answer: Each kept the promise to spare the other's heart, though neither was still in love
- Joe broke the promise on the very evening Louisa had made up her mind to break it
- Louisa broke the promise to punish Joe, and learned too late that he had been faithful
- Lily broke the promise for them by telling Louisa everything that was said on the wall
Irony is a gap between what people expect and what is really so. Louisa goes on with the wedding because she will not "prove untrue and break his heart". Joe goes on with it because he will not go back on a woman who has waited fourteen years "an' break her heart". Yet the narrator has already shown that Louisa's feeling for Joe has gone still, and that the song of romance Joe hears now has another name. Each is keeping the promise for the sake of a love the other no longer feels. When Louisa finally speaks, Joe admits, "I think maybe it's better this way". It is Louisa who ends the engagement, and Lily tells her nothing.
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Question 24. Which statement best expresses a central theme of "A New England Nun"?
- A woman who waits faithfully for a man will always be rewarded with a happy marriage
- A man who leaves home to seek his fortune will lose the respect of those he left behind
- A village that gossips about its neighbors will drive its gentlest people into hiding
- Correct answer: A woman may prize the independent life she has built over the marriage expected of her
The story sets the marriage Louisa is expected to make against the life she has made for herself, which the narrator calls her "happy solitary life". She chooses that life. Nothing in the story shows Joe losing anyone's respect, and the village does not drive Louisa anywhere: she stays at her own window by choice. A second theme runs beside this one. Louisa, Joe and Lily each put honor and duty ahead of what they want. Freeman does not say whether Louisa chose well. Her life is summed up as "Serenity and placid narrowness", the peace and the smallness named together.
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Question 25. Which of these events actually happened in the story?
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Before Joe comes in, Louisa takes off two aprons and receives him in a third, of white linen.
Happened
She takes off the green gingham apron after washing the tea-things and the pink-and-white one when she hears Joe's step. Under them is a white linen apron with a cambric edging: "that was Louisa's company apron".
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Joe wrote to Louisa every week during his years in Australia.
Didn't happen
For fourteen years the two did not see each other once, and "they had seldom exchanged letters". Joe did not even tell her that he was coming home.
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After Joe's visit, Louisa sweeps up the dust he has tracked onto her carpet.
Happened
She sets the lamp on the floor, examines the carpet, and even rubs her fingers over it. "He's tracked in a good deal of dust," she murmurs, and she fetches a dust-pan and brush.
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Louisa's brother chained the dog after it bit a neighbor.
Happened
The neighbor demanded either the dog's death or complete ostracism. So "Louisa's brother, to whom the dog had belonged", built him a little kennel and tied him up. That was fourteen years ago.
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Joe unchains the dog and takes him for a walk through the village.
Didn't happen
Joe pats the dog and once attempts to set him loose, but "Louisa grew so alarmed that he desisted". He keeps saying he will take him out some day. He never does.
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Louisa overhears Joe and Lily Dyer on a Tuesday evening, a week before the wedding.
Happened
The narrator is exact: "It was a Tuesday evening, and the wedding was to be a week from Wednesday." There is a full moon, and Louisa strolls down the road about nine o'clock.
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Louisa tells Joe that she overheard him talking with Lily Dyer.
Didn't happen
The narrator says, "She never mentioned Lily Dyer." Louisa tells Joe only that she has lived so long in one way that she shrinks from making a change.
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Joe says he would have stuck to Louisa till his dying day if she had wanted to keep on.
Happened
Joe is honest enough to say that it may be better this way, but he adds, "I'd have stuck to you till my dying day". Louisa answers that she knows it.
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The story ends with the wedding of Joe Dagget and Lily Dyer.
Didn't happen
No wedding takes place in the story, and the narrator never says whether Joe and Lily marry. The last we see of Lily, she walks past Louisa's window, "tall and erect and blooming". The story ends with Louisa sewing alone.
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Louisa has taken a nun's vows and lives in a convent outside the village.
Didn't happen
Louisa lives in her own house, and there is no convent in the story. The nun is a comparison the narrator makes in the last sentence, where Louisa sits "prayerfully numbering her days".
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