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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. With what does the younger official bang on Rubashov’s door?

2. What are the two types of cases that could be used in court for Rubashov?

3. What does Rubashov think molded him and Ivanov to be very similar people?

4. What does 406 draw for Rubashov one day when exercising?

5. What does Ivanov call Rubashov’s emotional state?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Ivanov want to commit suicide at one point and how did Rubashov help him?

2. What does Rubashov daydream about on his seventh day in prison?

3. Why does Rubashov meet with Little Loewy?

4. Whom does Rubashov watch the guards escort down the hallway after Rubashov’s flashback? What does the man look like?

5. What is Rubashov’s relationship to Arlova and what happens to her?

6. Why does Rubashov question Richard and what does Rubashov tell Richard?

7. Who is brought to cell 406? What does he keep tapping?

8. How is Rubashov given a chance to exercise? How is that carried out?

9. Why does Rubashov think he is unable to hate No. 1?

10. What was Prisoner 406’s sentence in his country of origin? How much time does he serve? How does he get out of prison?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss one of the following:

Trace and analyze the theme of political philosophy in Darkness at Noon. Consider the following questions as you write: Examine which characters are most concerned with political philosophy and about what their concern is centered. How does political philosophy drive the plot? How is political philosophy responsible for the ultimate fate of Rubashov?

Trace and analyze the theme of individualism in Darkness at Noon. Which characters struggle with this issue? Why? How is Rubashov’s suppression of his individualism responsible for Rubashov’s death? Why might a Communist state attempt to eradicate individualism?

Essay Topic 2

When he wakes, Rubashov meditates on whether he will be shot, saying to himself, "the old guard is dead. . . . We are the last" and rubbing his "pince-nez".

Discuss the implications of the above statement in view of what is happening in the Soviet Republic at the time of this novel’s setting. Use examples from Darkness at Noon to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

A prisoner in cell 406 was arrested in his country for communist activities. After 25 years in prison, he is pardoned. He is taken to the station by friends and sent to Russia, his life-long dream. In Russia he is arrested and put in prison. In prison he keeps insisting his friends put him on the wrong train and that someday he will get to Russia and be free.

Discuss the way in which prisoner 406 uses denial of his situation in order to mentally/emotionally survive circumstances which directly oppose what the prisoner has believed most of his life and had spent 25 years in prison for believing. Use examples from Darkness at Noon to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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