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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 object is not in the painting one man saw before going blind?

2. Who is forced to assist in the goading forward of new internees?

3. What action does the First Man take, forgetting that he has gone blind?

4. What has run out by the end of the chapter?

5. In what state is the Girl with Dark Glasses when she goes blind?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the Thief suffer an injury?

2. How does the First Man compose himself in the Doctor's office?

3. 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?

4. Does the Doctor have an explanation for the First Man's sudden blindness?

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

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

7. Describe the painting the Man with the Eye-Patch mentions at the end of Chapter 8.

8. Who in the first ward dies in the hail of fire?

9. What services will the government offer the quarantined inmates, according to the announcement?

10. What is the Thief's state of mind at the beginning of Chapter 2?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The beginning of the novel is marked by a sense of helplessness and shame associated with the inability to see. Explore the unifying embarrassment characters feel in these chapters through the following:

Part 1) How would you describe the character of the First Man? Though we do not know anything of him prior to going blind, does he seem like a man used to asking for help? How does he respond to being helped home by the Thief and stumbling around his apartment?

Part 2) In what state are both the Thief and the Girl with Dark Glasses when they go blind? What - in both of their lives - are they hiding from most of the world which is impossible to hide when they are in this helpless state?

Essay Topic 2

After the central characters leave quarantine, they discover a city where absence of sight has rendered private property nonexistent:

Part 1) Examine the overview of the situation as related by the anonymous man that the Doctor's Wife speaks to as she is walking to the city? What function do residences and stores serve in this new society?

Part 2) Which characters within the group cling to the hope that they will find their old home, and which give up this hope? Prior to regaining their sight, do they find a home?

Part 3) Examine the First Man's arrangement with the Writer living in his house. How has the First Man's attitude toward private property changed since the beginning of the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Burial is an important component of the narrative. As time goes on, the characters' attitude toward interring their dead changes. In an essay, state the change that occurs in this attitude and how this change mirrors the characters' change in self-image. Map this change through the burials of the following:

1. The Thief

2. The four first ward inmates shot by the guards

3. The Old Woman with insomnia

4. The Gaunt Old Woman

(see the answer keys)

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