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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 does Ballard do for the week after being released from the hospital?

2. Who is Francis Waring, according to Ballard?

3. What is Ballard's "ironic gesture" to provoke Catherine and Renate, who don't want him to drive?

4. Where does Ballard take one of the three prostitutes to?

5. When Ballard first sees Helen at the hospital, what is the scarred man wearing under his lab coat?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the point of view in "Crash"?

2. How is the man killed in the crash with Ballard symbolic?

3. What are Ballard's injuries from his crash with the man and his wife and how does he respond to them?

4. What kind of car does Ballard buy after his accident and what does it signify?

5. Who is Elizabeth Taylor and what role does she play in the novel?

6. How does Dr. Helen Remington react to Ballard when he tries to speak to her in the hospital corridor?

7. How does the wife of the man killed in the crash with Ballard react to the crash and why is it significant?

8. Why doesn't Catherine attend the funeral for Dr. Helen Remington's husband and what does it show about her character?

9. What is the chronology of the novel and why is it significant?

10. What kind of pleasure did Vaughan derive from car crashes and how is it significant?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In "Crash," both Helen's husband and Vaughan die early in the novel. Ballard's recollections of Vaughan and meeting him through his accident that killed Helen's husband can be seen as a sort of elegy as he grieves for both himself (in being accountable for another person's death) as well as for his friend. Choose 3 major scenes and discuss the way he expresses his grief.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the uses of technology in "Crash."

1) What is the role of technology in the characters' lives?

2) How do the characters respond to and identify with technology?

3) How is technology a metaphor for evolution?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss surveillance as a major theme in the novel by comparing two characters.

1) How do these characters survey others?

2) What are the motives for the characters' surveillance?

3) What do the characters learn by surveying others?

4) What devices, mechanical or otherwise, does Ballard use as instruments of surveillance?

(see the answer keys)

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