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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 the narrator wish he could say to Irene?

2. Where does Odilo Unverdorben live most comfortably?

3. How do people speak in the narrator's experience?

4. Which war does Tod Friendly protest?

5. What does the narrator think always happens to the attraction Tod Friendly feels for women?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator understand about sex?

2. How does the narrator understand language?

3. How does the narrator experience Tod's kindness to children?

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

5. What does the narrator think about Tod Friendly's dreams and memories?

6. How does the narrator feel about the change from America to Europe?

7. Describe John Young's departure from Europe.

8. What happens when the Reverend Kreditor talks to John Young about stormy weather?

9. Is there any place where the narrator's understanding is more accurate than Tod Friendly's?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The Holocaust is almost impossible to represent in literature or film. Does this book succeed in giving you a sense of the horror and wrongness of what took place during the war? Where is the book most believable and effective? Where does it stir the reader's sympathies and feelings? Where does it leave the reader detached and unfeeling, apart from the action? Does the book deliberately try to overcome the reader's aversion to difficult material? Is the backwardness of the narration an effective method for getting the reader to read about something hard to bear? What other techniques does the author use for conveying difficult or painful information? Cite specific examples from the text in your answer.

Essay Topic 2

Irene and Herta both have children whom they cannot keep. Compare and contrast the effects of this loss on Herta and Irene. How is the experience similar for the two women? How is it different? How does it affect their lives and their relationships with Odilo Unverdorben?

Essay Topic 3

The narrator feels an almost religious awe at Uncle Pepi's power to create people.

1. Who else seems to have this power, and how do they use it? What are the effects of this power?

2. Are there any instances where characters resist this sense of awe with reason or pragmatism or some other form of understanding that protects them?

3. Is respect for that power a historical fact that was only exhibited in the Holocaust and select other historical instances? Or is respect for that power a stage of development, which has to be followed by regret and acts of contrition? Cite specific examples from the text in your answer.

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