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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 mood do the diction and details included in the scene where the police leave their cars and enter the water create?

2. On page 234, which of the following terms does the narrator use to describe the sunset?

3. What technique is evident in the phrase "feverish plucking and twanging, tom-toms, congas, and gongs" (235)?

4. What is the detail about how long the narrator has been carrying a condom in his pocket meant to convey?

5. When the narrator unbuttons the second button on Gin's shirt, what does he see?

Short Essay Questions

1. On the night in the lover's lane toward the end of the story, what does the narrator realize about his relationship with Gin?

2. In what sense does the narrator mean that, after the night on Oak Street Beach, the dead woman was always "with" him and Gin?

3. What does Gin dream about the dead woman and her grandmother's cottage?

4. What does the narrator say might have happened if the dead woman had washed up beside them while he and Gin were trying to have sex on the beach, and why is Gin so offended?

5. On page 233, the narrator describes the girlfriend's mother's car as having "a rosary twined [around] the rearview mirror like a beaded, black snake with silver, cruciform fangs." Describe the tone of this image and explain how it is related to the narrator's later description of unbuttoning his girlfriend's shirt.

6. What do the first paragraph's details about the father's car convey about the family's social class?

7. Explain the relationship of the story's title to the Amichai poem excerpt used as an epigraph.

8. Where are some of the places listed in the poem's opening paragraph, and how do they convey the couple's youth?

9. What is the rhetorical purpose of the narrator's comments about the "bloodless way in which a young man discards his own virginity" (235)?

10. What does Gin dream about a baby in the water, and what does she believe her dream means?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about the symbolic nature of Gin's dreams about the dead woman. Be sure to support your ideas with evidence from the text.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay that makes and defends a claim about the relationship between sex and adulthood in "We Didn't." Consider both the characters' perspectives and the implied authorial perspective. Use textual evidence to support your assertions.

Essay Topic 3

Stuart Dybek is also a respected poet. Read his poem "Night of Voyeurs," (available online) in which he is also writing about sex and the city of Chicago. Consider what role sexuality plays in this poem and then write an essay that compares and contrasts the meaning of sex in this poem with the meaning of sex in "We Didn't."

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