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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 effect does the other's atopia have on language?

2. What are the advantages of the act of annulment?

3. The section entitled "Catastrophe" refers to two systems of despair. What are they?

4. In the section entitled "To Love Love," the term "annulment" refers to which of the following issues?

5. What is the feeling that the author refers to in the section entitled "Agony?"

Short Essay Questions

1. In "I have an Other-ache"/Compassion, in relation to the other's suffering, the lover sees himself as a Mother, but an insufficient one-why?

2. Discuss the function of the dark glasses in Dark Glasses/To Hide.

3. What is the lover's attitude towards choice in "What is to be done?"/Behavior?

4. In "All the delights of the earth"/Fulfillment, what does the author mean when he says that fulfillments are not spoken?

5. In Atopos, how does the lover associate the other with innocence?

6. In Atopos, how does the lover see himself in relation to the other?

7. Briefly describe the lover's sense of engulfment in the section "I am engulfed, I succumb..."/To Be Engulfed.

8. Discuss the example of Werther's love for Charlotte that the author uses to explain annulment in To Love Love/Annulment.

9. In "When my finger accidentally. . ."/Contacts, what does the author imagine Werther's reaction to be when he accidentally touches Charlotte?

10. In Laetitia/To Circumscribe, what are two pleasures the narrator dreams of, and which one does he aspire to.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

"I love you" is a peculiar phrase because, as the author states in I-Love-You (pg. 147), it is the metaphor of nothing else: it only has meaning at the moment it is uttered. Analyze the author's argument in this section.

- How does he describe the utterance in linguistic terms, i.e. how does it fit into language?

- What are the various responses to this utterance, both acceptable and unacceptable to the lover's ears?

- How is I-love-you an "active force," and against what?

Essay Topic 2

In Annulment (p. 31) and Dedication (p. 75), the author shows the process by which the lover's attentions can turn the other into an object.

- Describe how the lover's idealization of the other is actually a form of annulment. Is this illusion created around the other typical of love relationships?

- What is the result of the lover's objectification of the other?

- In Dedication, the process of making the other into an object functions a little differently-how?

Essay Topic 3

In Ravishment, the myth of love at first sight is discussed at length. Love at first sight or ravishment is in fact drawn explicitly from the image-repertoire.

- How does the text describe love at first sight?

- What are the conditions needed for it to occur?

- How does the visual function, e.g. what is the significance of the "scene?"

- How does the aural function?

- Does love at first sight really happen, or is it something that takes shape in the lover's mind upon reflection?

(see the answer keys)

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