Ordinary Monsters Quiz: 20 Questions on Plot, Characters, and Themes
This quiz covers the full arc of Ordinary Monsters, from the epigraph to the epilogue. Use it to test your recall of key plot turns, character motivations, symbols, and the novel's larger questions. For deeper context, see the book overview, the questions and answers, and the ending explained.
Plot and Sequence Questions
1. The epigraph that opens the novel is credited to which source?
- A) The Book of the Dead
- B) The Book of Enoch
- C) The Mabinogion
- D) The Sibylline Oracles
2. Where does Eliza Grey first discover the glowing baby she names Marlowe?
- A) In a London theater
- B) In a freight boxcar near Bury St Edmunds
- C) In a Natchez warehouse
- D) In an Illinois circus
3. What is Charlie Ovid's unique talent?
- A) He can animate dust
- B) He can turn invisible
- C) He heals from any wound without scarring
- D) He can see the dead
4. Who is the gray, hairless creature that stalks Whitechapel and later attacks Charlie?
- A) Jacob Marber
- B) Walter Laster
- C) Frank Coulton
- D) The drughr
5. What happens to Frank Coulton during the train journey to Scotland?
- A) He is killed by Jacob Marber
- B) He falls off the train and survives
- C) He is turned into a litch by the drughr
- D) He escapes with Brynt
6. What ability does Komako Onoe possess?
- A) She can heal others
- B) She can animate dust
- C) She can become invisible
- D) She can control fire
7. What artifact do Charlie and Marlowe retrieve from the orsine at Berghast's request?
- A) A keywrasse
- B) A weir-bent
- C) A wood-and-iron glove
- D) A map made of human skin
8. What is Dr. Berghast's fate at the end of the novel?
- A) He escapes through the orsine
- B) He is killed by Charlie
- C) He is dragged into the orsine by the drughr
- D) He becomes the new glyphic
Character Motivation Questions
9. Why does Eliza Grey decide to leave Marlowe with Brynt and walk away?
- A) She no longer loves him
- B) She realizes hunters will keep coming and wants to protect him
- C) She is forced by the reverend
- D) She wants to return to her employer's family
10. What drives Jacob Marber to seek the orsine and the drughr's help?
- A) He wants to rule the world
- B) He wants to resurrect his twin brother Bertolt
- C) He wants to destroy Cairndale
- D) He wants to become a glyphic
11. Why does Alice Quicke agree to hunt Jacob Marber?
- A) She wants to prove herself to Mrs. Harrogate
- B) She carries Marber's dust and can sense him, and she wants to avenge Coulton
- C) She is paid a large sum
- D) She wants to rescue Marlowe
12. Why does Komako finally let her sister Teshi die?
- A) She realizes Teshi is already dead and her talent has been keeping her undead
- B) She is forced by Jacob Marber
- C) She wants to use Teshi's power
- D) She believes Teshi is cursed
13. What motivates Charlie to search for the second orsine at the end of the novel?
- A) He wants to regain his lost talent
- B) He believes Marlowe is still alive inside the orsine
- C) He wants to destroy the drughr
- D) He wants to find his father's grave
Theme and Symbol Questions
14. What does the key-shaped birthmark on Marlowe's body signify?
- A) He is destined to open the orsine
- B) It confirms his identity as Stephen Halliday
- C) It marks him as a servant of the drughr
- D) It is a scar from his mother
15. In the novel, the orsine primarily symbolizes what?
- A) The boundary between the living and the dead
- B) The power of the Cairndale Institute
- C) The corruption of science
- D) The bond between siblings
16. What does Marlowe's blue shine represent in the story?
- A) His connection to the drughr
- B) His dangerous and extraordinary talent, often associated with light against darkness
- C) His grief for Brynt
- D) His healing ability
17. What does Charlie's mother's ring, with its crossed-hammers crest, symbolize for him?
- A) His lost inheritance
- B) His connection to his father and his identity
- C) A promise to return to America
- D) His membership in Cairndale
Synthesis Questions
18. How does the novel challenge the idea of "monstrosity"? Use examples from Miss Davenshaw's lesson and the treatment of talented children.
19. Compare the motivations of Dr. Berghast and Jacob Marber in their dealings with the drughr. How do their goals differ?
20. What role does "found family" play in the novel, especially for Marlowe and Charlie? How does it contrast with blood family?
Answer Key
1. B — The epigraph is a single quotation credited to The Book of Enoch, describing giants turning on humanity after humans could no longer feed them.
2. B — Eliza boards a freight boxcar near Bury St Edmunds and finds a glowing baby beside its dead mother; she names him Marlowe.
3. C — Charlie Ovid's healing ability leaves no scars; he survives being shot and pronounced dead, and later extracts a hidden blade from his own arm.
4. B — Walter Laster is the gray, hairless creature (a litch) who stalks Whitechapel and later attacks Charlie at 23 Nickel Street West.
5. A — On the train, Coulton confronts Jacob Marber and is killed; his body later becomes a litch, but the death occurs on the train.
6. B — Komako can animate dust, a talent she calls "dustwork," which causes her physical pain.
7. C — Berghast sends Charlie and Marlowe into the orsine to retrieve a wood-and-iron glove; Charlie finds it on a mummified body in the dead city.
8. C — After Charlie stabs Berghast, the drughr rises from the orsine and drags him down into the depths.
9. B — Eliza realizes that bounty hunters will keep coming for Marlowe, so she leaves him with Brynt to protect him, a maternal sacrifice.
10. B — Marber's recurring dreams of a shrouded woman urge him to open the orsine to bring back his twin brother Bertolt, who died as a chimney sweep.
11. B — Alice agrees to hunt Marber because she carries his dust from his attack and can sense him, and she wants to avenge Coulton's murder.
12. A — Komako accepts that Teshi is not ill but undead; her talent has been keeping her sister alive, and she lets her die peacefully in her lap.
13. B — Charlie believes Marlowe is still alive on the far side of the orsine, based on his friend's parting words and his own feeling, so he vows to find the second orsine.
14. B — The key-shaped birthmark confirms Marlowe's identity as Stephen Halliday, the kidnapped baby from Norfolk, according to Alice Quicke's claim.
15. A — The orsine is a passage between the worlds of the living and the dead, a liminal space that Cairndale is built beside.
16. B — Marlowe's blue shine is his dangerous, extraordinary talent; it repels Marber on the train and later burns Berghast, representing light against darkness.
17. B — The ring with the crossed-hammers crest connects Charlie to his father, Hywel Owydd, and becomes a talisman of memory and identity.
18. Miss Davenshaw's lesson on teratology argues that difference is not monstrous but "nature at work." She uses jars of fetal deformities and Darwin's theory to show that talents are variations that have always existed. Charlie is called a "freak" and "monster" by street children, and Komako is branded cursed, yet the novel consistently reframes these differences as natural, not evil. The true monsters are those who exploit or fear the talented, like Berghast and the drughr.
19. Berghast wants to absorb the drughr's power and become it, using Marlowe as a lure; he has lost his own talent and seeks immortality and control. Marber, by contrast, was deceived by the drughr into believing he could resurrect his brother Bertolt. He ultimately tries to protect Marlowe by stealing him away, showing a flicker of redemption. Both are corrupted by the drughr, but Berghast's ambition is self-serving while Marber's is rooted in grief and guilt.
20. Marlowe's found family includes Brynt, Alice, and later Charlie; Charlie finds belonging with Coulton and the Cairndale children. Blood family is often absent or destructive: Eliza abandons Marlowe, Charlie's parents die, and Marlowe's biological mother is the drughr. The novel suggests that family is a choice, not biology—Charlie and Marlowe bond as brothers, and the survivors at the end form a new household, choosing to search for Marlowe together.