View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Eric envision as the yearly fee for membership in Villa Venus?

2. Where does Van keep Ada's communications for fifty years?

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

4. What has Van developed a test for?

5. What is Cordula doing the first time Van tries to walk on his hands after his injury?

Short Essay Questions

1. What plan does Lucette propose to Van?

2. How does Demon discover that Van is living with Ada?

3. What were the reviews of Van's first book like?

4. What is Van's opinion of acting?

5. What metaphor does Van use for trying to understand time?

6. How did Percy de Prey die?

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

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

9. What does Cordula tell Van about Vanda Broom?

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

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 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 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 732 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample