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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 does Marketa not feel threatened by Eva?

2. Why do students dance in a ring?

3. After leaving the ring, what does Kundera do?

4. Where does Kundera remember a number of historical events happening?

5. Who does Karel picture in his mind when he, Marketa and Eva are together later?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the difference between how Mama views memory versus how Karel and Marketa do?

2. Where does Mirek stop and why is that problematic?

3. What does this Kundera say about our collective past?

4. What does Kundera say about laughter in response to Michelle and Gabrielle's laughter?

5. What happens when Karel receives a phone call and how is the outcome ironic?

6. What are Michelle and Gabrielle doing and what is their response?

7. What is it that Marketa does not know about Eva and do you think Marketa would care at this point if she learned this?

8. What is Zdena response to Mirek's request for his letters and do you think she is being fair to Mirek?

9. Why does Kundera quit dancing and what does he imagine about the dancing? Of what do you think his imagining about the dancing is symbolic?

10. What do Kundera and other students do around 1948 and why? Do you think Kundera is speaking metaphorically or actuality.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Part 3, "The Angels," Kundera is hired to write astrology columns for a political magazine after he is banned from working by the government. While on the job, he is asked to give the personal astrological reading of a Communist in secret. He gives him the "reading" and the editor of the magazine tells him the powerful man becomes a much nicer, softer man after reading it. Discuss the following:

1. How do you think Kundera's story about astrology fits in with the rest of this novel?

2. Why do you think an astrology reading changes a man? Do you think this is a true anecdote?

3. Do you think Kundera is suggesting that astrology has as much a reason for what happens in the political arena of Czechoslovakia as anything else? Explain.

Essay Topic 2

In Part 4, we learn that shortly after her husband's death, Tamina swallows a bottle of prescription pills and swims out into the sea. Rather than become sleepy and sink, she instead becomes revitalized and finds a treasured silence within her. She comes back to shore and continues to live. Discuss the following:

1. Is Tamina performing an act of forgetting or remembering by her suicide attempt?

2. What do you think is the silence Tamina finds within herself? Do you think it is a positive thing? Why or why not?

3. When Tamina comes back to shore and continues to live, what do you think is the quality of her life? Explain with details from the text.

Essay Topic 3

In Part 3, "The Angels," it says that in 1948, Kundera was involved in the political parties of his time and "danced in a ring." Then he is asked to leave the ring for saying the wrong thing. Kundera watches the dancing with envy and in his recollection, Eluard stands in a ring with other students eventually dancing their way into the sky as they float away, happily, above Kundera's head. Discuss the following:

1. What do you think is the connection between being involved in political parties and dancing in a ring?

2. Is the ring a metaphor for belonging? Explain.

3. What do you think Kundera means when he says the students eventually dance their way into the sky as they float away, happily, above Kundera's head?

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