View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why did James decline to work with Northeast Group initially?

2. What type of church did Owen attend as a child?

3. Why does Charles Maitland get angry at James at the end of Chapter 7?

4. Who is the inspiration for Tap's novel?

5. In Chapter 1, what word does Kathryn bet James that Tap knows?

Short Essay Questions

1. What story does Owen tell about a cave in Chapter 2?

2. Why are the Axtons separated?

3. What theories do Kathryn and Owen posit about the killings in Chapter 5?

4. How is Owen's connection to the cave people addressed in Chapter 4?

5. Why is Volterra in Jordan in Chapter 6?

6. What theory about the language cult does James present to Owen in Chapter 7?

7. Why is Owen uncomfortable talking about the Feast of the Virgin in Chapter 2?

8. How did James Axton begin working at Northeast Group?

9. What indication exists in Chapter 1 that relations are strained between James and Kathryn?

10. What is James and Kathryn's relationship with Volterra?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The place of America in the international community is a recurring motif in the narrative. How are all of the main characters - James Axton, Kathryn Axton, and Owen Brademas - at the back and call of this place? What new dangers are emerging from the ether in regards to Americans abroad? How is James Axton an operative of America in the hostile international world? How does Eliades represent the opposite, a spokesman and operative for a disgruntled world?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the marriage and separation of James and Kathryn Axton. How did their marriage affect each others individual life and goals? What state is the marriage in when the novel begins, and how did it reach this point? Discuss how Kathryn and James' personalities and lifestyles change after the separation. What idiosyncrasies are revealed as a result? What finally breaks the marriage apart for good, and how does the veneer of cordiality disappear as a result?

Essay Topic 3

In The Names, Don DeLillo has created a central mystery - the mystery of the cult - in which clues and revelations are annoyingly amorphous and cannot necessarily be trusted. Write an essay about the subjectivity of truth in the novel, focusing on three pieces of information that James Axton gleans in his investigation. Where does this information come from? What is James's attitude towards it? Does he think that it is ultimately trustworthy?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,018 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample