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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 "Ulrikke," what happens between the narrator and Ulrikke?

2. What idea is the main concern of "Paradiso, XXXI, 108"?

3. In "In Memoriam, JFK," JFK's assassination is similar to what event?

4. In "The Sect of Thirty," the sect worships which Biblical figure?

5. In "Juan Murana," what is the name the aunt uses for the knife that kills the landlord?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does "The Disk" say about greed?

2. Name some of the customs and beliefs of the strange group in "The Sect of Thirty."

3. In "The Book of Sand," what are the stages of the narrator's view toward the book?

4. In "The Plot," a gaucho dies in a similar fashion to Julius Caesar. What does this suggest about history?

5. In "The Interloper," do the Nelson brothers have any redeeming qualities?

6. In "The Yellow Rose," what is Marino's epiphany?

7. In "The Rose of Paracelsus," why doesn't Paracelsus turn the ashes of the rose into a rose for the young man?

8. In "Covered Mirrors," what is the narrator's attitude toward mirrors?

9. In "Unworthy," why does Fischbein, a mild-mannered and bookish man, hang around a gang?

10. In "A Weary Man's Utopia," is the society described by the old man really a "utopia"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay on issues of race in Borges' stories. "The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell" seems to point out the evils of slavery. At the same time, Borges will often describe a character simply as a "black man," as if that were the defining characteristic. In "The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro," Ebenezer Bogle is described as "black" and a "genius." Does this juxtaposition suggest a belief that the two terms are usually mutually exclusive? Is Borges, in terms of race, merely the product of his times? Or, is he critiquing the racial views of his times? Use at least two stories in arguing your point.

Essay Topic 2

Many of the stories in "Collected Fictions" are detective stories. Think of "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," "The Garden of Forking Paths," "Death and the Compass," "Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth" as examples of the major ones. How are Borges' detective stories similar or different from standard detective stories? Are they nail-biting whodunits, or something else? Are they satires of detective fiction? Choose at least one of the above stories and use it to specifically illustrate your argument.

Essay Topic 3

In "The Library of Babel," a librarian frantically and hopelessly tries to organize the books in a seemingly infinite library and looks for a book that will summarize all the others. Is this story merely a work of imaginative fiction, or a possible metaphor for the actual world? What is Borges implying about the nature of human knowledge? Make sure to discuss "The Library of Babel," but also include at least one more story that touches on this common theme of Borges. Be specific.

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