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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. To whom does Mirek lie about the reasons he becomes involved with Zdena?

2. What happens to Mirek and his son?

3. What is Zdena's response?

4. What do Eva, Marketa and Karel frequently do?

5. Why is Mirek driving to see Zdena?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens that embarrasses Mama?

2. Who is Mirek going to visit and why?

3. Why do you think Marketa asks Eva to pretend she is Marketa's cousin?

4. How does Kundera's loss of his friends in the dancing circle affect him later?

5. Where does Mirek stop and why is that problematic?

6. How does Marketa's feelings towards her mother-in-law change over time?

7. What is the larger meaning of the letters which Mirek is supposedly seeking to have back?

8. What is it that Marketa does not know about Eva and do you think Marketa would care at this point if she learned this?

9. What happens when Karel receives a phone call and how is the outcome ironic?

10. What are Michelle and Gabrielle doing and what is their response?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Part 4, Tamina first asks Bibi and then Hugo to retrieve her letters from Prague. Discuss the following:

1. Why do you think Tamina does not go retrieve the letters herself? Explain fully with details from the text.

2. In relying upon others to get the letters, Tamina surrenders her personal power over her life. Do you think she is capable of assuming power over her own life?

3. How is living in the past another way of surrendering her personal power?

Essay Topic 2

This "novel" is more a text of ideas than action. Discuss one of the following ideas:

1. In part 6: "The Angels," Kundera writes that Hubl remarks that you can "liquidate its people" by erasing their memory of their previous culture. Discuss this idea in context of the book.

2. In part 6: "The Angels," Kundera blurs the historical moments of Clementis and Gottwald, Kafta and the President heretofore referred to as the Presdient of Forgetting, Svoboda. Discuss this blurring of historical moments in context of the book.

3. Discuss the idea that despite hundreds of thousands of lives being influenced and changed, the history of the world is easily forgotten. (From Part 1: "Lost Letters")

Essay Topic 3

In Part 3, "The Angels," it says that in 1948, Kundera was involved in the political parties of his time and "danced in a ring." Then he is asked to leave the ring for saying the wrong thing. Kundera watches the dancing with envy and in his recollection, Eluard stands in a ring with other students eventually dancing their way into the sky as they float away, happily, above Kundera's head. Discuss the following:

1. What do you think is the connection between being involved in political parties and dancing in a ring?

2. Is the ring a metaphor for belonging? Explain.

3. What do you think Kundera means when he says the students eventually dance their way into the sky as they float away, happily, above Kundera's head?

(see the answer keys)

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