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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 done with Marina's body after she dies?

2. What is the best Franco-Estonian restaurant in Manhattan Major?

3. How does Ada introduce her husband to Van?

4. What occurs as Van enters the hotel to meet Ada?

5. On what deck of the boat does Van initially find Lucette?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What does Lucette say about Ada's hands?

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

4. How does Van remember his three farewell lectures on Bergson's Time?

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

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

7. How does Van respond to an invitation to dine at the Captain's table?

8. In Marina's last days, why is Van planning a trip to America?

9. How did Percy de Prey die?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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