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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. What special interest does Paul Dillon not allow Inez to have?

2. What does Lovett say is the only way Harry and his associates believe something is true?

3. Who visits the office where both Inez and Didion work in Chapter 4?

4. Which member of the Christian family agrees to an interview with CBS during the 1972 campaign?

5. What is the name of the girl who is seriously injured in a car accident with Adlai?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Jack Lovett first meet Inez Christian?

2. What does Didion think when Inez finally invited her to Kuala Lumpur?

3. What is Joan Didion's first memory of Jack Lovett and Inez Victor together?

4. What absurd process is happening involving American officials in Vietnam?

5. Why does Billy Dillon not allow Inez to work with refugees?

6. What is Paul Christian's attitude regarding the shooting?

7. Describe Janet Christian's interview in Chapter 10.

8. How does the US government figure out thaat Jack Lovett is dead?

9. How does Jack Lovett find Jessie Victor?

10. How is Wendell Omura connected to Dick Ziegler?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Joan Didion 's style of writing is perhaps most often described as cold, objective, and bloodless. It reflects her background as a journalist. Write an essay in three parts, examining how her narrative style affects the way she presents the shattering events of Democracy. How does she deny her characters a clear emotional life? How does this affect the way these violent and passionate events occur? How does it affect the reader's reaction to them?

Part 1) Jessie Victor's drug addiction.

Part 2) Paul Christian's shootings.

Part 3) Inez Victor's affair and her decision to leave her family.

Essay Topic 2

Perhaps the most central relationship of DEMOCRACY is that between the author and the reader. Didion - and her alter ego, the narrator - continually indicates that she is not going to honor the unspoken agreement of this relationship. Write an essay about this relationship in three parts:

Part 1) In what respect is Democracy not the narrator's first choice for a novel? What did Didion supposedly attempt to write before she settled on the story of Inez Victor and Jack Lovett?

Part 2) The narrator regularly uses conditional and hypothetical language when describing events in the story. What does this indicate simultaneously about her relationship with those events and with the reader?

Part 3) The order in which the story of DEMOCRACY is told is not chronological. Why do you think Didion chooses to structure the story this way? What does it deny to reader and what does it provide?

Essay Topic 3

Didion seems to indicate throughout the novel that political life is just as vicious as - and possibly more so - military life. Write an essay on this assertion, in two parts:

Part 1) Inez Victor is presented as a victim of public life. To what extent is she destroyed by her relationship with Harry Victor? What passions is she forced to give up? What role is she forced to inhabit because of Harry's political aspirations?

Part 2) Billy Dillon is presented as a foot-soldier of political life; his motivations seem entirely removed from normal human compassion. How is he constantly undermining normal human interaction? To what extent is verbal and emotional violence the main tool of his trade?

(see the answer keys)

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