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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. How does Van act toward Ada in Chapter 32?

2. What activity does Marina do out on the lawn?

3. What does Ana raise?

4. What color does Demon dye his hair?

5. What does Van dream of the night after he first has sex with Ada?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Van feel about Cordula?

2. What is the first trick Ada and Van use to escape from Lucette?

3. What are the circumstances of Marina's first romantic liaison with Demon?

4. How does Dick cheat at cards, and how does Van best him?

5. What does Ada say lions do when they eat a person?

6. How doe Van describe Ada's way of talking when explaining something funny?

7. How does Van feel about Marina?

8. What becomes of Ada's old governess?

9. How does Ada act when she tells stories at the table?

10. Where and in what circumstances do Van and Ada first have sex?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare Lucette and Ada's characters in the novel.

1) What role does the age difference between Lucette and Ada play in their similarities and differences?

2) How doe Van love Lucette? How is this different from the way he loves Ada? Why?

3) What are Lucette and Ada's feelings for each other? What does this show about their personalities, values, and beliefs?

Essay Topic 2

As Van's memoir, the novel deals with memory. It also deals with memory through Van's discussion of time and its meaning. Discuss time and memory in the novel.

1) How is the story of Van and Ada's childhood changed by memory? What significance is there to the fact that the children's diaries were destroyed, forcing them to recreate the events from memory?

2) What role does memory plan in Van and Ada's feelings about each other why they are separated?

3) How does time affect the characters? How does Van's discussion of time relate to the characters' experiences?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the mental and physical worlds in the novel.

1) How does the mental world of Van's intellectual investigations and books relate to the physical world around him?

2) How does Van's mental relationship with Ada relate to their physical relationship?

3) How does the balance of mind and body, mental and physical change over time, as Van ages?

(see the answer keys)

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