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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 is the name of the narrator's sister?

2. What kind of grades does the young narrator make?

3. What is the name of the Company President whose picture hangs in the protagonist's family's hallway?

4. Where did American Nazis hold picnics only blocks from the narrator's house?

5. What does the narrator eat which makes his mother weep in Chapter 2?

Short Essay Questions

1. What were the narrator's father's ambitions for him growing up?

2. What story does the narrator tell about Ronald Nimkin?

3. About what do the narrator's parents coddle him regarding his knee in Chapter 4?

4. Where does the narrator's father work? What line of business is he in? Where is his "route?"

5. What does the narrator say he grew up to NOT be, at least, in Chapter 4? Why?

6. What does the narrator's mother believe he has been eating in Chapter 2? How does she react?

7. What does the narrator's mother do to him when he is "bad?" How does he react?

8. Why does the young Alex believe he has cancer?

9. What resentments does the narrator recall following the family's move from Jersey City?

10. Who is the shikse who came to the young Alex's family's home? Why?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the theme of Sexual Obsession in Portnoy's Complaint. How does this theme intertwine with the other themes presented? How does this aspect of the narrator's personality drive his action?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the theme of Guilt/Shame in the novel. How does this relate to the narrator's feelings of rebellion? Where does this emotion resonate the most in the narrator? How does this affect his actions in the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss "Stream of Consciousness" as a stylistic device in the novel. How does this impact the reader's understanding? How does this affect the flow of time?

(see the answer keys)

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