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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 Part Three of the book, Jeremy asks Bernard to tell him the details of a story. Which story is that?

2. When a group of teenagers surround Bernard, what does he tell them?

3. In Part Two, what does Bernard say he misses most about June?

4. Who calls Jeremy late at night to give him news of Berlin?

5. What was Jeremy's reason for his five hour walk to the dolmen?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Jeremy and Bernard begin to discuss things that June told Jeremy for her memoir, what is Bernard's initial reaction?

2. What would be an apt description of the small family staying at the hotel?

3. When Bernard and June are waiting at the train station to go into Arles, why do they walk into town instead of continuing to wait?

4. Bernard tells Jeremy as they are walking toward the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin that he thought certain things about June for the first six months after she died. What does he tell Jeremy?

5. How does it come to be that all of the hotel patrons end up eating dinner at the same time?

6. Bernard talks to Jeremy about he and June staying in a little town on their way home from Italy and on the way to the gorge. Bernard had been with only June for hours without any time alone. How does he feel when he goes out for a walk and is alone with his thoughts?

7. When Bernard finishes telling Jeremy the story in Part Two of how Bernard thought women and men think differently, and that women such as June think in magical terms, what is Jeremy thinking?

8. What do the father and mother do to the boy at dinner?

9. Jeremy asks Bernard if he's ever had the feeling that he was tempting fate. What response does Bernard give to that?

10. When Jeremy first meets Jenny at a convention, why is that he can't get to speak to her alone?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

June's black dogs and Bernard's caterpillars are symbolic of their separate ways of viewing the world. How is that so?

Essay Topic 2

How does Jeremy feel he was used by June and Bernard while she was in the nursing home? How did June manipulate him into getting messages to Bernard and vice versa? How did Jeremy react to being caught in the middle? What realization might he come to about having parents and marriage?

Essay Topic 3

One line in Part Four reads "The empty air, suffused with sunlight, seemed to contain a darkness just beyond the reach of vision". Explain this sentence as it relates to the story as a whole. Give examples, citing scenes from the book to support your explanation.

(see the answer keys)

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