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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. Who does Van see on the train?

2. What has Van developed a test for?

3. What sense does Van relate to time?

4. What did the artillery officer played by Kim Eskimossoff do for comic effect?

5. Who is visiting Villa Venus, causing it to be overrun with police?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Van plan to do in the duel?

2. How does Van respond to Ada's arrival?

3. Why does Van think he is sterile?

4. What does Van write about in his unsent letter to Ada?

5. What does Cordula tell Van about Vanda Broom?

6. What excuse does Van make up to have time alone with Ada?

7. What does Van propose about the future in his treatise on time?

8. What does Van do after leaving Demon?

9. How does Van gain the post of Rattner Chair of Philosophy at University of Kingston?

10. What is Cordula's conversation like?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Van has a privileged life. Discuss privilege in the novel.

1) What freedoms does Van's wealth and status allow him? How would his life be different if he weren't wealthy?

2) How is it significant that Van has an independent inheritance from Aqua and is not dependent on Demon for money?

3) What is Van's perception of his position of privilege, and how does this perception change throughout his life, from youth to old age?

Essay Topic 2

The novel is a memoir, narrated by Van with input from Ada, and written in the third person with occasional first-person interludes. Discuss point of view in the novel.

1) Why does Van write his memoir mainly in the third person? What does this say about Van's perception of himself through time and his memories?

2) At what points does Van interrupt the narrative in the first person? What do these first person sections add to the novel? Why are they there?

3) What does Ada add to the novel? Where is her voice present?

Essay Topic 3

The novel is filled with reflections of reality through art, such as films and photographs. Discuss these elements of the novel.

1) How do reflections of reality in the novel, like photographs or films, differ from reality itself? How do they create reality through memory?

2) What significance is there to Marina and later Ada's careers as actresses? How does the mimicking of reality in acting affect the characters?

3) How does the governess's screenplay reflect reality at Ardis Hall? How is it modified and changed in the process of production? What does this process of change show about imitations of reality?

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