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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 Tamina think the ostriches are doing?

2. What does Tamina find within herself?

3. What does Tamina do shortly after losing her husband?

4. How does the student spend the evening?

5. What happens when Tamina and her husband are abroad?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Kundera do at the opening to Part VI: The Angels?

2. What is the meaning of the word litost?

3. How is Kundera's father's attempt to understand Beethoven undertaken by Kundera?

4. What conditions have to exist for graphomania to blossom?

5. What is ironic about the student deceiving Kristyna and attending the Writer's Club meeting?

6. Who is Kristyna?

7. Why do you think Kundera blurs historical moments?

8. How are the Czechs and litost related in Kundera's opinion?

9. What happens to Kundera's father in Part 6 and what do you think is the significance of Kundera writing about what happens to his father?

10. What happens to permanently silence Tamina?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Part 3, "The Angels," laughter is discussed and analyzed at great length. Discuss the following:

1. Compare and contrast the different types of laughter discussed in Part III.

2. Which types of laughter could be labeled "good" or "uplifting"? Explain.

3. Which types of laughter could be labeled "bad" or "harmful"? Explain fully.

Essay Topic 2

In Part 4, Tamina first asks Bibi and then Hugo to retrieve her letters from Prague. Discuss the following:

1. Why do you think Tamina does not go retrieve the letters herself? Explain fully with details from the text.

2. In relying upon others to get the letters, Tamina surrenders her personal power over her life. Do you think she is capable of assuming power over her own life?

3. How is living in the past another way of surrendering her personal power?

Essay Topic 3

In Part 4, we learn that shortly after her husband's death, Tamina swallows a bottle of prescription pills and swims out into the sea. Rather than become sleepy and sink, she instead becomes revitalized and finds a treasured silence within her. She comes back to shore and continues to live. Discuss the following:

1. Is Tamina performing an act of forgetting or remembering by her suicide attempt?

2. What do you think is the silence Tamina finds within herself? Do you think it is a positive thing? Why or why not?

3. When Tamina comes back to shore and continues to live, what do you think is the quality of her life? Explain with details from the text.

(see the answer keys)

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