Blood on Her Tongue Quiz: Test Your Knowledge
How well do you know Johanna van Veen’s Blood on Her Tongue? This 20-question quiz covers the full novel, from the discovery of the bog body to Lucy’s final acts. Questions are split into plot and sequence, character motivation, theme and symbol, and synthesis. An answer key with brief explanations follows. Review the book summary or the questions and answers page for help, and avoid spoilers about the ending until after you’ve finished.
Quiz
Plot & Sequence (8 questions)
1. What event compels Lucy Goedhart to travel to Zwartwater?
- A) A letter from her twin sister Sarah describing a bog body
- B) A telegram from Michael asking her to nurse Sarah
- C) News that her aunt Adelheid has died
- D) An invitation to the Schatteleyn estate for a party
2. What does Lucy find written in the margins of Sarah’s book on ticks?
- A) A shopping list
- B) The words “like the BOG WOMAN” and paranoid notes about a parasite
- C) Love letters to Arthur
- D) A recipe for a sleeping draught
3. What object does groundskeeper Mr. Hooiman discover near the bog?
- A) A silver locket
- B) A golden wedding ring with a Latin inscription
- C) A pair of spectacles
- D) A broken fountain pen
4. How does Lucy kill Michael Schatteleyn?
- A) She poisons his tea
- B) She gouges out his eyes and stabs his throat with a split-nib fountain pen
- C) She pushes him down the stairs
- D) She suffocates him with a pillow
5. What does the 1559 court document reveal about the bog woman?
- A) She was a witch executed for sorcery
- B) Her husband J.W. murdered her because he believed she was a changeling
- C) She drowned accidentally while gathering peat
- D) She was a victim of plague
6. What happens during Sarah’s funeral?
- A) A thunderstorm delays the burial
- B) Sarah knocks from inside her coffin and is revived
- C) The hearse crashes into a tree
- D) Lucy confesses her affair with Michael
7. After Sarah’s apparent death, what does Lucy do with a piece of her sister’s skin?
- A) Buries it in the garden
- B) Swallows it and holds it under her tongue
- C) Preserves it in formaldehyde
- D) Gives it to Katje as a keepsake
8. How does the novel end?
- A) Lucy marries Arthur and returns to Rotterdam
- B) Sarah is committed to an asylum and dies there
- C) Lucy, Not-Sarah, and Katje disappear; a newspaper article reports them missing
- D) Michael survives but is blinded and arrested
Character Motivation (5 questions)
9. Why does Sarah bite Arthur in Chapter 2?
- A) She is possessed by the bog woman and sees him as a threat
- B) She is trying to kiss him
- C) She is angry at him for marrying her sister
- D) She mistakes him for Michael
10. What motivates Lucy to kill Michael?
- A) Revenge for his affair with Katje
- B) To prevent him from committing Not-Sarah to an asylum
- C) To inherit his estate
- D) To free herself from a toxic relationship
11. Why does Katje allow Not-Sarah to feed on her blood?
- A) She is being blackmailed
- B) She loves Sarah and feels seen as a whole person by her
- C) She is also possessed by a parasite
- D) She hopes to become immortal
12. What is Arthur’s main reason for proposing marriage to Lucy?
- A) He genuinely loves her
- B) To offer her social protection and gain control over the situation after Sarah’s “death”
- C) To inherit Michael’s fortune
- D) To prevent her from testifying against him
13. Why does Not-Sarah insist she is “as much like Sarah as possible”?
- A) To trick Lucy into feeding her
- B) Because she absorbed Sarah’s memories and wants Lucy’s loyalty to survive
- C) She is actually Sarah, only changed
- D) She believes she can become human again
Theme & Symbol (4 questions)
14. What does the bog body primarily symbolize in the novel?
- A) The inevitability of death
- B) The repressed, the Other, female madness, and forbidden desire
- C) A scientific mystery that can be solved
- D) The corruption of the upper class
15. How does the novel explore the theme of twinship?
- A) Through the identical appearance of Lucy and Sarah
- B) Through Lucy’s role as the submissive twin whose identity depends on Sarah, and the codependency that drives the plot
- C) By showing that twins always share the same fate
- D) By contrasting the twins’ relationships with their parents
16. What does the split-nib fountain pen that Lucy uses to kill Michael represent?
- A) Her education and career aspirations
- B) Lucy’s agency, her role as a writer of her own story, and the twin bond (the doubled nib mirrors the twins)
- C) The fragility of life
- D) The male domination of writing
17. According to the author in the “Conversation with the Author,” why does the novel conflate madness and queerness?
- A) Because the author believes they are linked
- B) To criticize the historical stigmatization that labelled same-sex desire as mental illness; depiction is not endorsement
- C) To make the story more sensational
- D) Because the bog woman was a lesbian
Synthesis (3 questions)
18. How does Lucy’s killing of Arthur differ morally from her killing of Michael?
- A) Arthur was innocent; Michael was guilty
- B) Michael’s death was to save Not-Sarah; Arthur’s was to prevent him from manipulating Lucy and framing Sarah, showing her growing ruthlessness
- C) She felt remorse for Arthur but not for Michael
- D) Arthur died accidentally; Michael was murdered intentionally
19. What central moral dilemma does the “mercy kill” concept raise in the story?
- A) Whether it is ever acceptable to kill a loved one who has become dangerous
- B) Whether killing the Other is mercy or fear of the unknown, especially when the loved one retains enough of their personality to still feel like themselves
- C) Whether the asylum or death is more merciful
- D) Whether Lucy should kill herself instead
20. Based on the ambiguous ending and the author’s comments, what future do Lucy, Not-Sarah, and Katje likely face?
- A) They are arrested and executed
- B) They continue to feed on humans to sustain Not-Sarah, possibly traveling through Europe and hiding among superstitious locals
- C) Not-Sarah gradually starves and dies
- D) They separate and never see each other again
Answer Key
1. A – Lucy receives a letter from Sarah describing the bog body and her subsequent illness, which summons her to Zwartwater.
2. B – In Chapter 6 (Chapter 5 of the book), Lucy reads Sarah’s marginalia that deteriorates into paranoid writing about a parasitic fungus and the bog woman, including “like the BOG WOMAN.”
3. B – Mr. Hooiman shows Lucy and Katje a golden wedding ring with a Latin inscription that Mrs. van Dijk later identifies as a 17th-century posy ring.
4. B – In Chapter 24, Lucy thrusts her thumbs into Michael’s eyes and then stabs his throat with her split-nib fountain pen, as evidenced in the retrieved excerpts.
5. B – The court document records the trial of farmer J.W. who murdered his wife M.W. (later identified as Marianne) by forcing a rock into her mouth and sinking her in the bog because he believed she was a changeling.
6. B – During the funeral, Lucy hears scratching and knocking from inside Sarah’s coffin; when opened, Sarah sits up alive and demands food.
7. B – After preparing Sarah’s body for burial, Lucy swallows a small piece of her sister’s sloughed skin and holds it under her tongue (Chapter 8).
8. C – The novel ends with a newspaper article reporting Lucy, Not-Sarah, and Katje missing, with speculation that the bog claimed them. The three women plan to stage an elopement and disappear.
9. A – Sarah is in a delirious fever, paranoid that Arthur is trying to feed her something harmful; the bog woman’s influence drives her to bite him (Chapter 2).
10. B – Lucy resolves to kill Michael after he insists on committing Not-Sarah to an asylum, recalling her aunt’s death there. She believes this is the only way to protect her sister.
11. B – Katje confides that only Sarah treated her as a whole person despite her past trauma, so she willingly feeds Not-Sarah to preserve that bond (Chapter 20).
12. B – After Sarah’s apparent death, Arthur offers marriage as a social solution for Lucy’s precarious position, but also to keep her under his control and prevent her from leaving Zwartwater.
13. B – The entity explains that it absorbed Sarah’s memories and consciousness, and it needs Lucy’s continued care to survive. It claims to be “as much like her as possible” to gain trust.
14. B – The bog body represents the repressed feminine, the unknown, and the Other; its staking and stone in the mouth symbolize silencing of women, and it triggers themes of madness and forbidden desire.
15. B – Lucy explicitly sees herself as the weaker, submissive twin whose identity is defined by Sarah. The author confirms this dynamic drives Lucy to extreme acts to preserve the twin bond.
16. B – The pen’s split nib doubles the written line, mirroring the twin bond. Lucy uses it as a weapon, asserting her own agency and rejecting her role as passive shadow.
17. B – In the author interview, van Veen states that depiction is not endorsement; she uses the historical conflation to critique the stigmatization of both mental illness and queerness.
18. B – Michael’s death is a direct act to save Not-Sarah from the asylum. Arthur’s murder occurs after he offers to frame Sarah for Michael’s death; Lucy kills him to maintain her loyalty to her sister and avoid manipulation.
19. B – The author’s interview highlights the question: when a loved one becomes the Other, is killing them truly mercy, or is it driven by fear? Not-Sarah retains Sarah’s memories, complicating the moral calculus.
20. B – The author imagines the trio traveling through Europe, satisfying Not-Sarah’s curiosity while allowing her to feed safely among people who fear the undead. The ambiguous ending leaves their survival open.
Want to discuss these answers? Visit the questions and answers page or read more about the ending’s ambiguity.