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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. To whom is the narrator's asceticism addressed?
2. In Dark Glasses/To Hide, what paradox is revealed in the act of concealment?
3. The term "atopos" is associated with which of the following figures?
4. In the section on agony, to what does the narrator compare the steady progress of the emotional state he experiences?
5. According to this section in the text, what is the best reaction to the other's suffering?
Short Essay Questions
1. Discuss the function of the dark glasses in Dark Glasses/To Hide.
2. In the section called The Tip of the Nose/Alteration, the author uses a scene between Werther and Charlotte from the novel Werther to represent the lover's change in attitude toward the loved one. What happens in this scene and what does it demonstrate?
3. In Waiting, how is "the scenography of waiting" structured?
4. Describe the lover's predicament with regard to understanding love in "I want to understand."
5. In Atopos, how does the lover associate the other with innocence?
6. In "When my finger accidentally. . ."/Contacts, what does the author imagine Werther's reaction to be when he accidentally touches Charlotte?
7. How does Catastrophe discuss the "amorous catastrophe" experienced by the lover?
8. In "Tutti Sistemati"/Pigeonholed, how does the lover perceive the system inhabited by others?
9. In "All the delights of the earth"/Fulfillment, what does the author mean when he says that fulfillments are not spoken?
10. In Connivance, what position does the other (the object of desire) occupy in the lover's conversation with his rival?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
In Jealousy, the author says that "Werther's jealousy derives from Images" (pg. 144.) Likewise, in Images (pg. 132), the author describes how Werther is affected by a particular scene involving Charlotte. The image clearly has a powerful effect on the lover. Why?
- What does the image represent?
- How does the lover interpret various images and what do they become for him?
- How does the image inform desire? (pg. 145.)
- What is the nature of the jealousy that images provoke?
Essay Topic 2
Discuss the idea of the figure that Roland Barthes outlines in the beginning of the book.
- What is a figure, according to his definition?
- Why did he choose this structure for the text?
- How do figures function, generally, and in the context of the lover's discourse?
Essay Topic 3
The other's absence is an important theme in the text. It surfaces in figures such as Absence, Anxiety, and Waiting. Discuss how the lover defines himself through absence:
- What does it mean that amorous absence functions in a single direction? (Absence, pg. 13)
- Who carries out the discourse of absence historically and what does this mean for the lover?
- What position does the other occupy in this dynamic?
- How does the other's absence affect the lover? (Anxiety, pg. 29)
- In what way is the absent other associated with truth? (Waiting, pg. 37)
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This section contains 1,086 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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