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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 opinion about love does Merteuil voice to Valmont?

2. What does Madame de Tourvel regret in letter 124?

3. Which category of women does Merteuil consider the most worthwhile?

4. What does Valmont do when alone with Cécile in her room?

5. How does Prévan get into Merteuil's room on the night of his apparent victory?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Valmont's response to Merteuil's affair with Danceny.

2. Describe Merteuil's warning to Valmont about his reputation in Paris.

3. Describe what Valmont does when he gets the key to Cécile's room.

4. What is the content and tone of Danceny's letters to Merteuil?

5. What does Valmont vow about his seduction of Madame de Tourvel, and how does he plan to carry out his plan?

6. Describe how Madame de Tourvel changes after being abandoned by Valmont.

7. Summarize Bertrand's letters to Madame de Rosemonde.

8. What event causes Madame de Tourvel to think Valmont does not love her? How does Valmont's respond?

9. How does Danceny explain his behavior to Madame de Rosemonde?

10. What is Merteuil's next plan for seduction? How does Valmont react?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What are Merteuil and Valmont's "ethics" of seduction? How do they plan their seductions? What motivates them to seduce and ruin others? What rules of letter writing, evidence gathering, and record-keeping do they have for themselves and for others? Do you see any ironic or hypocritical behavior in Valmont or Merteuil? Why do they constantly write to each other of their own plans, offer their criticisms or praises of each others plans, tell stories of seductions past, and warn each other of potential dangers?

Essay Topic 2

Analyze the changes in Cecile's character throughout the novel. What characteristics define her in the beginning, middle, and end of the story? Closely analyze Cécile's letters to Sophie, looking for language and phrasing which indicates how she feels about her relationships with others. This includes her thoughts on marriage, her relationship with her mother, her feelings for Danceny, and her friendship with Merteuil. How does her language and her style of writing help define Cécile's character? Why does she stop writing to Sophie? Why is Cécile's voice almost completely absent through the last portions of the novel? What does this conspicuous absence say about her identity, or lack thereof? What control, if any, does Cécile retain over her own life? How does she use this control, or how do others (specifically Valmont) control her?

Essay Topic 3

Think of the form of this work is an epistolary novel. Do the letters themselves symbolize anything? Danceny writes in letter 150 that "a letter is the portrait of the soul." What does it mean to correspond with another person, and how is it carried out? How does reading an epistolary influence your experience with communication, character relationships, people, dialogue, and so on in a novel? Do the letters serve any purpose besides as a vehicle to express the plot of the novel?

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