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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. How do the children on Tamina's team reward her?

2. Who is Tamina?

3. How is Tamina's situation similar to her husband's when he was ill?

4. Where do Kristyna and a student she meets agree to reunite?

5. Why do the police go to Tamina's apartment?

Short Essay Questions

1. What conditions have to exist for graphomania to blossom?

2. How is Tamina's eventual suicide symbolic?

3. Why do you think Kundera blurs historical moments?

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

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

6. Discuss what graphomania is and how it is used in the context of this chapter.

7. Who is Kristyna?

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

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

10. What is the relationship of litost to romantic love in general and specifically in relation to Kristyna and the student?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Part 3, "The Angels," laughter is discussed and analyzed at great length. Discuss the following:

1. Compare and contrast the different types of laughter discussed in Part III.

2. Which types of laughter could be labeled "good" or "uplifting"? Explain.

3. Which types of laughter could be labeled "bad" or "harmful"? Explain fully.

Essay Topic 2

In Part 2, "Mama," when Marketa learns of Karel's next date with a mistress, both she and Karel are angry. Discuss the following:

1. Discuss why you think both Karel and Marketa are angry.

2. How strong can a relationship be if both feel the need to have sexual liaisons with someone else? Explain fully.

3. Do you think Marketa and Karel's relationship can be salvaged? Explain fully.

Essay Topic 3

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")

(see the answer keys)

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