View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. In what hotel do Lucien and the narrator stay together?

2. From which play is the epigraph taken?

3. In what city does the narrator first meet Lucien?

4. To whom does the narrator compare Pascal before meeting him?

5. What is Lucien *wearing* when the narrator first meets him?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Bruno note is the distinction between modern humans’ early art and that of the Neanderthal?

2. How does Bruno characterize the myth of Prometheus and Epimetheus?

3. Why does the narrator prefer listening to older men to listening to younger men?

4. What does Lucien do to pay his bills?

5. What reasons does the narrator posit for Bruno keeping his fires small?

6. Why does Serge agree to work for Lucien?

7. Why does the narrator posit Platon’s chauffeur despises him?

8. Why is the narrator dismissed from federal service?

9. What does the narrator say about beauty?

10. Why does the narrator note being happy to be courted by Lucien?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Which character is the second most important in the text? How does the work support such an assertion?

Essay Topic 2

What is the novel’s overall impression of humanity? What in the text indicates as much, and how does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Similarly, the lengths of sections influence reading. What pattern of subsection-length is present in the novel, if any? What effect does the length of subsections have on the reading? How is the effect achieved?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 481 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample