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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 Celine's character Molly's occupation?

2. In what year was Celine's pamphlet "L'Ecole des cadavres" published?

3. Kristeva says Celine's goal is to pervert and twist what?

4. In what year was Celine's pamphlet "Bagatelles pour un massacre" published?

5. Kristeva says narrative in abject literature assumes that there is a sharp distinction between subject and what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Kristeva mean when she says Celine is neither actor nor martyr?

2. What does Kristeva mean when she says Celine's language exhibits a fascination with what might be called "binary" speech?

3. How, according to Kristeva, do Celine's works draw the reader to their primal repressions?

4. What does Kristeva say Celine felt was the foundation of human existence?

5. How does Kristeva say Celine seemed to feel about human identities?

6. How does Kristeva say the hatred of Jews act as a metaphor for the abject?

7. Why does Kristeva say her reading of Celine will not be a thematic one?

8. In what ways that Kristeva points out do Celine's writings differ from Jewish ideas?

9. How did Celine present very young girls in his works?

10. Why does Kristeva say it is rash to ignore any value one might find in the Anti-Semitism in Celine's work?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does Celine use female characters to disrupt the traditional model of the Oedipal triangle? What are some of the female characters he uses? What are their characteristics? How do these characters differ from the ones in the triangle? What roles are reversed or distorted? What seems to be Celine's goal with these characters? What does it seem like he wants the reader to feel?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the concept of the "zero-state" in young children. What does Kristeva mean when she talks about the zero state? What happens when a child starts to come out of the zero state? What are some of the fears and desires that a young, pre-cognitive child might have? How do the fears and desires sync up with Freud's model of the Oedipal triangle? How do they go against it?

Essay Topic 3

Explore Kristeva's use of the the traditional Freudian model of the Oedipal triangle. Why is it the perfect tool to explain the abject? How does she expand upon it? Why does she say it is flawed?

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