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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 is the "lolita" that Ada wears?

2. What stage name does Van perform under?

3. What causes both Van and Ada to rush back to the house?

4. What does Marina have in her screwdrivers instead of orange juice?

5. What is Marina, Demon, and Daniel's shared birthday?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Lucette want to draw flowers, when her sister is trying to teach her to draw?

2. What happens in Van's stage act?

3. How does Van first see Ada?

4. How does young Van feel about Ada?

5. What does Blanche look like as she is ready to leave?

6. How does Dick cheat at cards, and how does Van best him?

7. What is the first trick Ada and Van use to escape from Lucette?

8. What does Marina chastise Van for, after calling him into her room?

9. How does Van circumvent the rules about what Ada is supposed to read from the library?

10. What bad habit does Ana stop on her twelfth birthday?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss sexuality in the novel.

1) How and why is sexuality related to youth in the novel? How does sexuality change with age?

2) How does sexuality relate to love and affection in the novel? What do the characters expect from sex, and what does sex actually provide?

3) What role does sexual decadence, especially represented by the Villa Venus brothels, play in the novel?

Essay Topic 2

As Van's memoir, the novel deals with memory. It also deals with memory through Van's discussion of time and its meaning. Discuss time and memory in the novel.

1) How is the story of Van and Ada's childhood changed by memory? What significance is there to the fact that the children's diaries were destroyed, forcing them to recreate the events from memory?

2) What role does memory plan in Van and Ada's feelings about each other why they are separated?

3) How does time affect the characters? How does Van's discussion of time relate to the characters' experiences?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the structure of the novel.

1) What role does each of the five parts of the novel play? How does each represent a specific period in the relationship of Ada and Van, and how are those periods different from each other?

2) Why is the first book the longest? Why is the fourth book a single chapter?

3) In what ways is the structure chronological? How and why does it break out of chronological order?

(see the answer keys)

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