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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 feature of Van's and Ada's is extremely similar?

2. What happens to the weather during Demon's dinner with Marina, Van, and Ada?

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

4. Where was Van born?

5. Who is at home when Van first arrives at Ardis Hall?

Short Essay Questions

1. How doe Van describe Ada's way of talking when explaining something funny?

2. What reason does Van give Marina for leaving?

3. How does Dick cheat at cards, and how does Van best him?

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

5. How does Marina describe Jews to her daughter?

6. How does Van feel about Marina?

7. What does Van do, when Ada suggests he spank Lucette?

8. How does Van first see Ada?

9. What does Marina chastise Van for, after calling him into her room?

10. What does Blanche look like as she is ready to leave?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the relationships between parents and children in the novel.

1) How does Van relate to Aqua? How does he relate to Demon? How does he relate to Marina? What does he get from each of these parental figures, and how do they affect him?

2) How does Marina relate to Ada and Lucette? How does she influence them? Compare her influence to the influence of the governess.

3) What influence does Dan have as a parent? How do Lucette and Ada relate to him?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Terra and Antiterra in the novel.

1) Why does the author set the novel in an alternative reality, an "Antiterra"? What role does the imaginary planet, a mirror of our "real" world, play in the novel?

2) How do the characters envision Terra? What do their perceptions of Terra show about the characters themselves?

3) How do Terra and Antiterra differ? Compare the two worlds of the novel.

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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