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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 do the soldiers pour on the blind Thief's blood?

2. How many inmates are ordered to take away the Thief's body?

3. What rumor about the government is going around?

4. What does the Doctor request of the soldiers?

5. Why don't the police arrest the Thief after he goes blind?

Short Essay Questions

1. What bit of knowledge does the Thief reveal to the Doctor's Wife on the night of his death? What will he do with this knowledge?

2. Does the First Man trust the man who comes to his aid after he goes blind?

3. Describe the state of the dormitory at the end of Chapter 6.

4. How does the Man with the Eye-Patch describe the state of the outside world?

5. What appears to be the pattern for the spread of blindness in the novel?

6. What happens when the hundreds of new internees are delivered to quarantine?

7. What is the Thief's reaction to the suggestion that the Doctor be leader of the quarantined inmates?

8. Describe the final moments of the Thief's life.

9. What insights does the Doctor's Wife have about the society of blind people in quarantine in the beginning of Chapter 5?

10. What does the Doctor do when his Wife tells him that a Man with an Eye-Patch has arrived in the ward?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Within the quarantine, the dueling forces of authoritarian power and chaos are juxtaposed. The central narrative is the conflict of these opposing forces:

Part 1) Compare and contrast the government's plan for controlling the epidemic through quarantine with its plan for maintaining order within the quarantine.

Part 2) Discuss the results of the rules set down by the government to maintain order in quarantine with their results. Which rules are effective and which are discarded immediately?

Part 3) Compare the authoritarian rule of the government over the blind internees with the authoritarian rule of the Thugs over the other wards.

Essay Topic 2

Saramago makes several references to the old cliche: "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." In the central section of the novel, he pits two characters with sensory advantages against each other: the Doctor's Wife, who can see, and the Chronicler, who was born blind and can read and type braille. Compare and contrast these two "one-eyed men" and how they use or do not use their advantages. Is either truly a leader or "king" in the quarantine? What does each hope to achieve for their constituency?

Essay Topic 3

Several objects have major effects on the outcome of events in quarantine. Write a body paragraph about each of these objects: initial impressions upon its first appearance in the narrative, conjecture about its possible use by characters, and eventual function within the story:

Part 1) The gun

Part 2) The scissors

Part 3) The lighter

(see the answer keys)

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