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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. Of what is Bibi convinced?

2. What is one condition that must occur for graphomania to take place?

3. Why doesn't the memory of Tamina's husband torment her any longer?

4. How does the student spend the evening?

5. How does the narrator describe Tamina?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is Tamina's situation where Raphael takes her similar to her husband's situation just before he dies?

2. What happens to permanently silence Tamina?

3. Who is Kristyna?

4. Briefly describe a few of the most salient points about Tamina.

5. Where does the student go the day before Kristyna arrives and how does this affect the interaction between Kristyna and the student?

6. Explain who Tamina is and the significance of how Kundera describes her.

7. What does Tamina ask Bibi to get for her in Prague and why does Tamina make the request?

8. What character's life is again addressed in part 6 and how is her life dismissed in a sense?

9. What does Kundera do at the opening to Part VI: The Angels?

10. What does Tamina do shortly after her husband dies and what might this foreshadow?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Part 6, Kundera remarks that like Beethoven's final acts, his book is a novel on variations. It is a number of voyages leading into and through one theme. Discuss the following:

1. What is the one theme of this novel?

2. Explain the variations of the theme giving specific examples.

3. Do you think there are other themes besides the one Kundera has in mind? What are they? Explain.

Essay Topic 2

In Part 4, we learn that shortly after her husband's death, Tamina swallows a bottle of prescription pills and swims out into the sea. Rather than become sleepy and sink, she instead becomes revitalized and finds a treasured silence within her. She comes back to shore and continues to live. Discuss the following:

1. Is Tamina performing an act of forgetting or remembering by her suicide attempt?

2. What do you think is the silence Tamina finds within herself? Do you think it is a positive thing? Why or why not?

3. When Tamina comes back to shore and continues to live, what do you think is the quality of her life? Explain with details from the text.

Essay Topic 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

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