View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where is Adlai attending summer school during Jessie's crisis?

2. What is Inez's date doing when Jack Lovett happens upon them in a cane field?

3. In her happy memory, where does Inez spend a day with her children while her husband is in Saigon?

4. At the end of the chapter, what does Jack Lovett tell someone to do?

5. What action does the narrator recall Inez Victor busying herself with on their 1975 meeting in Kuala Lumpur?

Short Essay Questions

1. What precautions does Inez Victor take to preserve her privacy?

2. How does Jessie Victor Make her way to Vietnam?

3. How are Jack Lovett and Inez Victor reunited in Chapter 11?

4. What rule of nonfiction does Didion demonstrate in this chapter, and how does she do so?

5. What prompts Inez to reflect on her life in Chapter 9?

6. What off-message statement does Inez make to an Associated Press reporter in Chapter 7?

7. What is Joan Didion's first memory of Jack Lovett and Inez Victor together?

8. What cable is sent to Inez Victor on October 2, 1975?

9. In what way does Inez become comfortable in her own life over the course of the novel?

10. Describe Carol Christian.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Colonialism is a major theme of Didion's novel. It is an enduring symbol of America and takes on numerous forms in the modern world. Write an essay on latter-day American colonialism, in three parts:

Part 1) Examine the history of the Christian family in Hawaii. How are they at once outsiders to island culture and also masters of every part of modern Hawaiian life? How do people like Dwight and Carol Christian feel about the islands?

Part 2) How is Janet Ziegler a representation of oblivious colonial attitudes inherent in upper-class American life? Examine the interchange she has with Frances Landau and her press interview regarding Inez as evidence.

Part 3) How does the work of Jack Lovett represent a sort of de facto colonialism inherent in the Truman Doctrine? What alternative does America offer to Communism, and how is Lovett's work in Vietnam and Cambodia endemic of that?

Essay Topic 2

In Democracy, the media becomes an entity unto itself, forever reducing characters to their most basic form and denying the world a cultivated understanding of them. Write an essay about three prominent media portraits in the novel. How do they neglect something essential about the character or characters contained within? What image of the character or characters does each create in its words and visuals? What is the article or image's importance to the narrative?

Part 1) Janet Ziegler's television interview about Inez.

Part 2) Inez's AP interview regarding her memory.

Part 3) The video of Inez dancing on the roof of the St. Regis.

Essay Topic 3

The author pointedly argues throughout DEMOCRACY that memory is the first casualty of public life. As such, the story of the novel, told in retrospect, is kept ambiguous to the reader. Write an essay on the frailty of memory, in three parts:

Part 1) The primarily philosopher of lost memory is Inez Victor. What examples does she give when explaining to a reporter that memory is the cost of public life? What has she lost from her own life?

Part 2) To what extent is the years-long relationship between Jack Lovett and Inez Victor an exercise in forgetfulness? What do they deny about their history and feelings, and how does this lead to an explosive event in Honolulu?

Part 3) In what way is the style in which Didion tells the story of the narrative an act of forgetfulness? How does her use of hypothetical language and constant qualification regarding facts create the sense of a history forgotten?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,196 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample