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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. In what country is the city of Rousse, where the unnamed narrator and R. had gone together just before the opening of "Valediction"?

2. The meteorological event mentioned in the section entitled "Cleanness" is said to have come from which continent?

3. The unnamed narrator claims, "There's no such thing as a professional" what "in Bulgaria" (155)?

4. Which character is the youngest among the members of the American cohort of writers depicted in "Harbor"?

5. In "A Valediction," the unnamed narrator muses about "the false similarity" (140) between which two words?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are revealed to have been the circumstances of the split between R. and the unnamed narrator?

2. What special attachment does the unnamed narrator have to the opera Lakme?

3. What is Tsaravets, the site depicted in the section called "A Valediction"?

4. For what reason is the unnamed narrator's sighting of the Danube River in "A Valediction" significant?

5. For what reason are R. and the unnamed narrator able to spend ten days together in the section entitled "The Frog King"?

6. About what subject does the unnamed narrator teach R. in the section entitled "A Valediction"?

7. Describe the unnamed narrator's story about how he and R. first met one another.

8. In what way does Greenwell clearly want the reader to see the unnamed narrator's comparison of Portugal and Bulgaria as flawed?

9. What does the unnamed narrator usually do during his breaks from teaching at the high school?

10. In what way is R. different from the men the unnamed narrator has dated before, as depicted in Part II, Loving R.: "Cleanness"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the instances of irony within the narrative of Cleanness and analyze Greenwell’s purpose for including each instance you discuss.

Essay Topic 2

Analyze the ways in which the themes of adaptability and resignation appear within Greenwell’s book Cleanness. What message is Greenwell sending about these two themes over the course of the narrative?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss Greenwell’s use of metaphor, simile, imagery, and other literary devices as a means to send particular thematic messages within the narrative of Cleanness.

(see the answer keys)

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