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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 does Ernie decide that he is after the bullying by the Plimpfe?

2. Who stays behind when the Pimpfe leave Ernie?

3. What is Benjamin Levy's occupation?

4. What advertisement made Benjamin's tailoring shop a success?

5. What had a professor from Berlin found under the moss of the rock?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Ernie have in common with the German boy he meets when he runs away from home?

2. What is the role of the Lamed-Vov, the Just Men?

3. Why does Judith object to Mordecai telling stories to Ernie?

4. Why doesn't Ernie sing with his class when Herr Geek orders him to do so?

5. What rationale does Rabbi Yom Tov Levy offer for the mass murder and suicide he instigates?

6. How does Mordecai answer the question of why the Just Man dies in bed, rather than in martyrdom?

7. What "mysterious" change takes place in Benjamin after Mordecai and Judith join him in Stillenstadt?

8. Why did others regard Mordecai as a fallen Levy?

9. What does Ernie do to ease the emptiness in his heart after the beating?

10. Why do Mordecai and Judith decide that Benjamin is like a mosquito?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

An author has the option to write from the point of view of a particular character, a limited point of view in which he is able to explain the thoughts of some characters, or to write from an author omniscient point of view, in which he is able to explicate the thoughts of all of the characters. Which author point of view has Schwarz-Bart used in this story? Has he really understood the ideas and motivations of the Nazis? In your essay, validate your opinion with examples from the text.

Essay Topic 2

This author dedicates many pages of his story to dream sequences. For your essay, select one of the major dreams that Ernie has and interpret the dream, its relation to his waking life, and the author's possible purpose for including the dream in the story.

Essay Topic 3

Schwarz-Bart includes a number of characters who represent wide segments of society in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. In your essay, select two or three characters such as the nurse in the infirmary, the farmer's wife, the young Galician, or Herr Geek and explain what purpose they serve in presenting the reader with a panoramic viewpoint of the culture at that time.

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