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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 are the children fighting over in the streets, according to Corday?

2. Which of the following characters is not one of the Singers?

3. What word do the patients chant in unison in Scene 6?

4. What part of Corday's body does the Salesman admire in the dagger-purchasing mime?

5. According to Sade at the end of Scene 11, from what does the guillotine deliver its victims?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the Herald set the scene at the end of Scene 4?

2. Why does Sade feel the need to write horrific stories of aristocrats while in the Bastille?

3. Describe the world that Corday and Duperret describe in Scene 22.

4. Who is present on behalf of the asylum to oversee the Patients?

5. What is the nature of Marat's life in 1793?

6. What are Marat's grievances in his imaginary session with the imaginary National Assembly of Scene 27?

7. What do the apparitions of Scene 26 reveal about Marat?

8. How does Corday's sickness affect her performance?

9. What historical events have occurred in France in the four years prior to the events of the play-within-the-play?

10. What is the execution of Damiens and what does it signify to Sade?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the great debate between Sade and Mart, Sade's viewpoint is more complex and ambiguous. As an aristocrat turned Revolutionary turned voice for political apathy, his worldview is strange and inwardly focused. Write an essay on etymology of this viewpoint. Why did Sade join the Revolution, and why was he repelled by it? What does he view as most important in life? What is his attitude toward violence and its place in society?

Essay Topic 2

The point-of-view of the play-within-the-play in The Marat/Sade is transitory in nature. Write an essay about the various points-of-view, focusing on the following three points:

Part 1) Most of the cast of Sade's play represent the poor of France, led in their songs by the four Singers. To what extent is the play told from the point-of-view of the common rabble? What is their position on the events of the play?

Part 2) How does the cadence and tone of the play-within-the-play change as Marat's mental state and health deteriorate? How is the play a chronicle of his final hours, his doubts, and his anger at the Establishment?

Part 3) To what extent is the play exclusively Sade's perspective on Marat's life and work? What is his position on the radical revolutionary, and how does he present this view in the play?

Essay Topic 3

The idea of the reactionary is a constant theme throughout the play. Write an essay about the revolutionary attitude toward those who wish to reverse the social changes recently made. For each character below, explain their attitude toward the Revolution as a whole, Marat in particular, and violence in general:

Part 1) Corday

Part 2) Sade

Part 3) Coulmier

(see the answer keys)

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