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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 does Van's father offer to try to buy for him?

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

3. When Van meets Ada in the forest fork, what is she wearing?

4. What does Bout comment is covered in dust?

5. What does Baron d'Onsky try to buy from Demon?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Ada act when she tells stories at the table?

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

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

4. How does Aqua kill herself?

5. What do Demon think of Marina's career as an actress?

6. What are the circumstances of Marina's first romantic liaison with Demon?

7. What does Ada say lions do when they eat a person?

8. What are the rules of marriage among relatives that Van and Ada discuss?

9. How does young Van feel about Ada?

10. What happens in Van's stage act?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the importance of Ardis Hall in the novel.

1) What meanings and associations does Ardis Hall have for Van and Ada?

2) Why does Van never go back and live at Ardis Hall when he is older? Why does Lucette suggest they go to Ardis Hall?

3) By the end of the novel, Ardis Hall mainly exists in memory for the main characters. How is the memory different from the reality?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the relationships between parents and children in the novel.

1) How does Van relate to Aqua? How does he relate to Demon? How does he relate to Marina? What does he get from each of these parental figures, and how do they affect him?

2) How does Marina relate to Ada and Lucette? How does she influence them? Compare her influence to the influence of the governess.

3) What influence does Dan have as a parent? How do Lucette and Ada relate to him?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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