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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. Does Van talk to Ada before he leaves?

2. In what language does Van write letters to his mother?

3. What question of Van's does Ada not answer in Chapter 12?

4. When Van takes a walk after first arriving at Ardis Hall, who does he run into?

5. Who walks in on Ada and Van making love?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Ada say lions do when they eat a person?

2. What are the rules of marriage among relatives that Van and Ada discuss?

3. How does Lucette want to draw flowers, when her sister is trying to teach her to draw?

4. How does Marina describe Jews to her daughter?

5. What does Ada have to do before she can go off and meet Van in private in Chapter 20?

6. What is the first trick Ada and Van use to escape from Lucette?

7. How does Aqua kill herself?

8. How does Van circumvent the rules about what Ada is supposed to read from the library?

9. How does young Van feel about Ada?

10. How does Van feel about Cordula?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the novel's portrayal of men and women.

1) How are men and women's experience of sexuality different in the novel? How are they treated differently by society?

2) What does success mean for men and women in the novel? How is it different because of gender?

3) What are men and women's intellectual pursuits in the novel? How are they different because of gender?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the importance of Ardis Hall in the novel.

1) What meanings and associations does Ardis Hall have for Van and Ada?

2) Why does Van never go back and live at Ardis Hall when he is older? Why does Lucette suggest they go to Ardis Hall?

3) By the end of the novel, Ardis Hall mainly exists in memory for the main characters. How is the memory different from the reality?

Essay Topic 3

The novel is a memoir, narrated by Van with input from Ada, and written in the third person with occasional first-person interludes. Discuss point of view in the novel.

1) Why does Van write his memoir mainly in the third person? What does this say about Van's perception of himself through time and his memories?

2) At what points does Van interrupt the narrative in the first person? What do these first person sections add to the novel? Why are they there?

3) What does Ada add to the novel? Where is her voice present?

(see the answer keys)

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