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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 is more valuable to Kristyna than her relationship with the student?
2. How does the student feel as he returns home?
3. What does Tamina do shortly after losing her husband?
4. Why is Tamina thought to be a good listener?
5. What entices Kristyna?
Short Essay Questions
1. How is Tamina's eventual suicide symbolic?
2. What does Kundera do at the opening to Part VI: The Angels?
3. What happens to permanently silence Tamina?
4. Where does Tamina go with Raphael?
5. Who does Kristyna meet and what attracts her to this person?
6. How is Kundera's father's attempt to understand Beethoven undertaken by Kundera?
7. What conditions have to exist for graphomania to blossom?
8. What is the relationship of litost to romantic love in general and specifically in relation to Kristyna and the student?
9. What does Tamina do shortly after her husband dies and what might this foreshadow?
10. Discuss what graphomania is and how it is used in the context of this chapter.
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
In Part 2, "Mama," the collective past of Karel and Marketa tires them, bringing them to their present and future actions. They wish to erase their past and forget their history to create a new future. Choose one of the following to discuss:
1. How is Karel and Marketa's situation of their past history a metaphor for the history of Czechoslovakia?
2. Do you think erasing the past is the best way to create a different future? Explain fully.
3. Is it even possible to erase the past completely either as an individual, couple or country? Explain fully.
Essay Topic 2
In Part 4, the main character (as deemed by Kundera later in the novel) is introduced. She is one of the two or three fictionalized characters that Kundera assumes are born every second on earth. Discuss the following:
1. What do you think Kundera means by the statement above?
2. Do you think Kundera is advocating for or against writers and the characters they create? Explain fully.
3. If Tamina is a fictionalized character, do you think she is a symbol of some concept in Kundera's experiences? What do you think she represents? Explain fully.
4. Kundera thinks of Tamina as the main character. Why do you think he sees her as the main character? Of what--the book? A couple parts of the book?
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?
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This section contains 1,331 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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