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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 Tod Friendly see when he looks in the mirror?

2. How does the narrator think that John Young begins his affairs?

3. What does the old man tell Tod Friendly after the narrator sees Tod drive his car away from the fire hydrant?

4. When could John Young see stars in the city for first time?

5. What is Tod Friendly's job?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator understand about sex?

2. How does Tod feel about his physical body in the first chapter?

3. When is Tod Friendly/John Young happy?

4. Describe the narrator's mindset at the beginning of the novel.

5. What is Tod's relationship with the narrator?

6. What habits does Tod Friendly pick up over the course of the first chapter?

7. Describe the underground system for taking care of Nazis.

8. Describe how the narrator feels about Tod Friendly's work?

9. Describe Reverend Nicholas Kreditor's appearance.

10. Can the reader sympathize with the narrator's sense of horror at John Young's work?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What would you have done if you were Odilo Unverdorben's age in Germany when the Nazis were coming to power? Given what you know about the progressively tighter restrictions on Jews' behavior, would you have followed along, or would you have kept yourself apart from the fascism, or would you have resisted it? Cite instances from the book of the kinds of choices you would have faced, and cite instances from your own experience as you discuss how you would have faced them.

Essay Topic 2

Experiencing everything backward, the narrator mistakes helping people for hurting people and vice versa. Citing specific examples from the text, explore the meaning of this backwardness.

1. Does the narrator experience normal human reactions to what he sees, or are his emotions backward too? Can we trust him to have feelings based on what he sees?

2. Does the narrator's backwardness portray pain and assistance in a new or surprising light? What do we learn from the narrator about how people hurt or help each other?

3. Does the narrator's backwardness make us more or less sensitive to people's sufferings?

Essay Topic 3

Babies are a recurring image in Time's Arrow. Cite three instances where babies appear and describe their significance in the context where they occur; then describe their symbolic significance. What qualities do they represent in Odilo's life? In the narrator's? In the other characters?

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