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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. In what language does Van write letters to his mother?

2. What stage name does Van perform under?

3. What happens to the weather during Demon's dinner with Marina, Van, and Ada?

4. When writing her husband from sanatoriums, Aqua sometimes used a Russian term meaning what?

5. What is the "eremitic reality or collective dream" Van discusses in his dissertation called?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What reason does Van give Marina for leaving?

3. What does Van do, when Ada suggests he spank Lucette?

4. How does young Van feel about Ada?

5. How does Van first see Ada?

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

7. Describe the encounter between Blanche and Van.

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

9. What happens in Van's stage act?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Van and Ada part bitterly after 1888 because of jealousy, and jealousy plays an important role in their relationship. Discuss jealousy in the novel.

1) Why is Van so jealous of Ada's other sexual relationships, when he is also sexually active without her? How is Ada jealous of Van?

2) How is Lucette jealous of Ada? How does her jealousy affect and define her relationships with Van and with Ada?

3) What other jealousies exist in the novel? How do the different characters respond to and think of jealousy?

Essay Topic 2

The novel follows Van and Ada from their youth through their old age. Discuss aging in the novel.

1) How does Van change throughout his life? Are his physical changes separable from his mental and emotional changes?

2) How do the characters' values and priorities change over time? What is important to them in their youth and as they grow older?

3) How do the characters' perceptions of the world around them and of their own relationship change as they age?

4) What meaning does the approach of death have for Van and Ada?

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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