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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. In Chapter Six: The Body Electric, what does Deborah say her male friend's new wife's name?

2. In Chapter Four: Living in Yellow, what does Deborah say she bought for the house?

3. In Chapter Two: The Tempest, what does Deborah say the the caterpillar had?

4. In Chapter One: The Big Silver, what does Deborah say was the name of the boat the young woman had been on?

5. In Chapter One: The Big Silver, what does Deborah say was the young woman's hurt?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Chapter Two: The Tempest, what does Deborah say she resented most about her divorce? How does she say she thought of her unhappiness?

2. In Chapter Two: The Tempest, what did Deborah say she noticed about her male friends and colleagues? What did this lead her to question?

3. In Chapter One: The Big Silver, who does Deborah say was named "Big Silver"? Why was he called this?

4. In Chapter Five: Gravity, how does Deborah say she set up her shed? What did she furnish it with?

5. In Chapter Five: Gravity, what did Deborah say she started going through? What does she say the paragraph she read reminded her of?

6. In Chapter Four: Living in Yellow, where does Deborah say she moved? How does she say she thought about this move?

7. In Chapter Four: Living in Yellow, why did Deborah say she painted her walls yellow? Why did she paint them back to white?

8. In Chapter Six: The Body Electric, who does Deborah say she met later at the party? What did this person update her about their life?

9. In Chapter Two: The Tempest, how does Deborah apply the Big Silver metaphor to herself? How does she say she applied it to in her own life?

10. In Chapter Four: Living in Yellow, what does Deborah say she repaired? How did this repair become a metaphor?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the names and themes of each of the chapters in the autobiography. Each one connects to a theme carried out in the chapter, as well as an overall cadence of the autobiography. How are the chapters grouped together or connected by their titles and themes, either in groups, or across numbers? How are they all connected together for a layout of narrative? Use the chapter names for an exploration of what the narrative arc of the autobiography is, and what parts are specifically connected to one another.

Essay Topic 2

In many interactions in the autobiography that Deborah notices, from Big Silver in the beginning and another Big Silver in the middle, to the man taking up the table in the Eurostar, men take up a space that women do not, or have to try to, exist in. How does Deborah's observations of this tie to her discussion of being a minor or major character? How are these experiences of suppression similar or different than what Deborah's mother or other older generations would have experienced? Why do you think these experiences still occur in such away still in a modern sense?

Tie this discussion to outside research into microaggressions and the continued struggle for equality. What do these observations show about how a societal struggle evolves and sticks over time? Consider this also thinking about the idea of composition and recomposition. Is a new story being written? Or is an old story being recomposed with different lines?

Essay Topic 3

Throughout the autobiography, Deborah Levy uses different struggles of race to discuss struggles of feminism. Examples of this include James Baldwin (48,49), and later Fanon (79, 80).

Write about how Levy applies feminism struggles to race struggles. Find one of the authors who Levy writes about, and write what they would say on this topic in addition to another writer you read in research, or have led in previous class. Put them in conversation with one another. What is your opinion of how Levy uses these different voices and aligns these struggles? Is it appropriation or appropriate? What does it do, and where is it unable to go further?

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