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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Before any guests arrive to Jude and Willem's party, what action does Jude take?

2. What commonality does Jude see between law and mathematics?

3. Who is Julia?

4. What is JB's full and legal first name?

5. Who is Felix?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do the coupons in the novel symbolize?

2. How does Yanigihara want the reader to view Jude's decision to keep his past a secret and how do you know?

3. Discuss a time when Yanigihara uses a metaphor to represent some aspect of friendship.

4. Discuss a quality that Jude has in common with either Malcolm or JB.

5. In what way is the theme of acquiescence included in the first part of A Little Life?

6. In what way is foreshadowing included in relation to Jude's future?

7. What happens to necessitate the use of the fire escape?

8. What two elements of Willem's life in Wyoming does he miss?

9. What impetus prompts Malcolm to come out to his parents?

10. In what ways does Jude feel out-of-step with the rest of his peers' experiences?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss Yanigihara’s reasons for including instances of foreshadowing within the novel and how the use of foreshadowing connects with the narrative’s themes and messages.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Yanagihara’s use of metaphor, simile, imagery, and other literary devices as a means to send particular thematic messages within the narrative of A Little Life.

Essay Topic 3

William Faulkner once famously claimed that the most important literature deals with the subject of the human heart in conflict with itself. Explain how the theme of Human versus Self is demonstrated within Yanagihara’s novel A Little Life. Create a decisive, arguable claim and prove it with quotes from the novel.

(see the answer keys)

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