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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 does the night guard do when the Doctor's Wife sits at the main entrance of the quarantine?

2. What do two men returning from the Thugs warn the first warders not to do?

3. When the Doctor's Wife gets out of bed, what does she choose not to put on?

4. What does the Girl with Dark Glasses not realize?

5. What pierces a blind man's leg as he searches the same supermarket as the Doctor's Wife?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the Girl with Dark Glasses' decision about remaining with the Doctor's Wife?

2. How do the Thugs take control of the food rations?

3. What is the result of the other wards having given the Thugs all their valuables at once?

4. What does the unnamed woman do with the lighter she finds among her baggage?

5. Why doesn't the Doctor's Wife tell the other inmates that she can see?

6. What are the sleeping conditions in quarantine now that all of the beds are full?

7. How does the Girl with Dark Glasses respond to the Man with the Eye-Patch's declaration of love?

8. What does the Doctor's Wife do when she sees her husband in bed with the Girl with Dark Glasses?

9. What is the general attitude in the other wards when food stops arriving at the main entrance?

10. Describe the Gaunt Old Woman that lives below the Girl with Dark Glasses' parents' apartment.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose one of the following topics to discuss in essay form:

1.) Why does the Doctor's Wife not reveal her ability to see while in quarantine? Do you consider this choice prudent or selfish? Does this choice to remain a covert observer give her more or less control over her environment?

2.) Why do you think it takes so long for the blind inmates in quarantine so long to organize themselves? Are they content being at the mercy of systems handed to them by the government and the Thugs? What Saramago saying about the weak nature of human groups?

3.) Why do you think it is so easy for the Thugs to take control of the food supply and one of the wards? Is it exclusively their superior arms? What tactics do they employ to divide and disorient their subjects in the other wards?

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

Jose Saramago's narrative voice is unique in its familiarity with the reader and its presentation of the story in a colloquial, conversational format, one that forgoes many of the standards of traditional novel writing:

Part 1) Discuss the effect of Saramago's frequent use of the first person plural - we - to engage the reader as a confidante of sorts. How does this alter the traditional relationship between the third-person omniscient narrator and the reader?

Part 2) Examine Saramago's frequent usage of hypothetical situations - such as that of the Chronicler walking out among the desperate hordes of the other wards - and allusion to proverbs. What purpose do these devices serve in the narrator's dissection of events?

Part 3) Why do you believe that Saramago uses no quotation marks and generally embeds his dialogue into large paragraphs rather than breaking it up?

(see the answer keys)

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