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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. To what song is Inez Victor dancing the famous WNBC footage?

2. What is Harry Victor's first governmental office?

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

4. The one witness interviewed at the Christian crime scene is of what connection to Janet Ziegler?

5. Which of the following is not a measure Inez takes to protect her privacy?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Billy Dillon not allow Inez to work with refugees?

2. Does Inez ever consider leaving Harry Victor?

3. How does Jack Lovett find Jessie Victor?

4. What is happening to Jack Lovett at the end of Chapter 1?

5. How does the narrator's reading of papers in 1975 reflect her feelings about time?

6. How does Jack Lovett first meet Inez Christian?

7. What absurd process is happening involving American officials in Vietnam?

8. What does Jack Lovett see from the observation room at Honolulu airport?

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

10. What does Inez Victor want to discuss with Didion in 1975 instead of her affair with Jack Lovett?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Perhaps the most central relationship of DEMOCRACY is that between the author and the reader. Didion - and her alter ego, the narrator - continually indicates that she is not going to honor the unspoken agreement of this relationship. Write an essay about this relationship in three parts:

Part 1) In what respect is Democracy not the narrator's first choice for a novel? What did Didion supposedly attempt to write before she settled on the story of Inez Victor and Jack Lovett?

Part 2) The narrator regularly uses conditional and hypothetical language when describing events in the story. What does this indicate simultaneously about her relationship with those events and with the reader?

Part 3) The order in which the story of DEMOCRACY is told is not chronological. Why do you think Didion chooses to structure the story this way? What does it deny to reader and what does it provide?

Essay Topic 3

The actual plot of DEMOCRACY only begins about halfway through the novel. The preceding chapters provide reams of expository information and tantalizing clues as to what is to come. Write an essay analyzing the narrative structure of the novel. What does Didion achieve with the unorthodox structure? How does the first half of the novel prepare the reader for the plot to follow? What question does it raise? Are all of them answered by the end of the book?

(see the answer keys)

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