Running after antelope- The Test- by Scott Carrier

1.     How does Carrier use the grotesque?

2.     What is the significance of nobody being home or even a lack of a house on page 40?

3.     What is the significance of the details or lack of details of the narrator?

4.     What does the simile on page 41 mean? “A person’s soul should be like an ocean, but a schizophrenic’s soul is like a pool of rain in a parking lot.”

5.     What does the narrator mean by, “He says there’s a darkness that separates him from other people, a heavy darkness, like looking at a person from the bottom of a well” (Carrier 44)? What is the darkness?

6.     Briefly explain the narrator’s life.  Why does he have this job?

7.     What is the slice of pizza on pages 42-43?

8.     Why make the scale 1-7 and not 1-5 or 1-10?

9.     Looking at the narrator, is he a prime choice for interviewing schizophrenics? Why or why not?

10.  Did you like this story? Use literary devices to explain why or why not.