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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. How long does Van tell Demon his affair with Ada has been going on?

2. Where does Van track down Rack?

3. Who quips to Veen that he doesn't really need two women?

4. What year are most of the photos that Van and Ada view together taken?

5. To what drink does Van attribute his boyish look?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What does Van say is as common in dreams as metaphors are in poetry?

3. What plan does Lucette propose to Van?

4. What tragedy happened at the Villa Venus in Souvenir, Missouri?

5. When Ada telephones Van, what does she tell him?

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

7. Why does Van think he is sterile?

8. How did Percy de Prey die?

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

10. Why does Van need to go back for more surgery?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss madness in the novel.

1) What is Aqua's madness in the novel? Why does she go from sanitarium to sanitarium, and why does she kill herself?

2) What types of madness do Van's patients display? Why do mad patients see visions of Terra in the novel?

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

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?

(see the answer keys)

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