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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. Why don't the police arrest the Thief after he goes blind?

2. Which of the following is not among the rules announced to the inmates?

3. What does the Girl with Dark Glasses want to listen to on the portable radio?

4. What is the Girl with Dark Glasses' profession?

5. The night after inspecting the First Man, who does the doctor talk with first about the case?

Short Essay Questions

1. Does the First Man trust the man who comes to his aid after he goes blind?

2. Describe the Man with the Eye-Patch.

3. What is the Doctor's Wife's reaction to her husbands hypothesis about his blindness?

4. How does the Thief suffer an injury?

5. Describe the state of the dormitory at the end of Chapter 6.

6. Why do the guards fire on the inmates?

7. By this point, is the dispersal of food effectively organized by Chapter 7?

8. How are conditions in quarantine affected as more inmates arrive throughout Chapter 5?

9. Describe the humiliation that occurs when the Doctor tries to use the toilet in Chapter 6.

10. What happens when the hundreds of new internees are delivered to quarantine?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Within the quarantine, the dueling forces of authoritarian power and chaos are juxtaposed. The central narrative is the conflict of these opposing forces:

Part 1) Compare and contrast the government's plan for controlling the epidemic through quarantine with its plan for maintaining order within the quarantine.

Part 2) Discuss the results of the rules set down by the government to maintain order in quarantine with their results. Which rules are effective and which are discarded immediately?

Part 3) Compare the authoritarian rule of the government over the blind internees with the authoritarian rule of the Thugs over the other wards.

Essay Topic 2

Burial is an important component of the narrative. As time goes on, the characters' attitude toward interring their dead changes. In an essay, state the change that occurs in this attitude and how this change mirrors the characters' change in self-image. Map this change through the burials of the following:

1. The Thief

2. The four first ward inmates shot by the guards

3. The Old Woman with insomnia

4. The Gaunt Old Woman

Essay Topic 3

The beginning of the novel is marked by a sense of helplessness and shame associated with the inability to see. Explore the unifying embarrassment characters feel in these chapters through the following:

Part 1) How would you describe the character of the First Man? Though we do not know anything of him prior to going blind, does he seem like a man used to asking for help? How does he respond to being helped home by the Thief and stumbling around his apartment?

Part 2) In what state are both the Thief and the Girl with Dark Glasses when they go blind? What - in both of their lives - are they hiding from most of the world which is impossible to hide when they are in this helpless state?

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