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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 contemporary author does the writing assignment Didion quotes in Chapter 2 refer?

2. In the famous footage of Inez dancing, which famous New York building is she atop?

3. Who arrives in Honolulu with Inez Victor?

4. What type of suits does Jack Lovett customarily wear?

5. What is Inez Victor's maiden name?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the narrator of Democracy reveal herself in Chapter 2?

2. Why is the lie that Jack Lovett is in the military hard to swallow?

3. Describe Janet Christian's interview in Chapter 10.

4. How does Jessie return to the United States?

5. What is the purpose of Paul Christian's room at the YMCA?

6. Why is the helicopter engineer returning to Vietnam?

7. How does Jack Lovett find Jessie Victor?

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

9. Why is Inez Victor confined to a room when she arrives in Hong Kong?

10. Why does Inez listen to the radio all night at end of the chapter?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The world of DEMOCRACY - focused on the political and the military - is contingent upon reliability. As such, people like Harry Victor, Jack Lovett, and Billy Dillon fear nothing more than a wild-card. Write an essay about the wild-cards of DEMOCRACY, figures whose unpredictable choices render the best-laid plans of these power-brokers moot. How do the following characters throw a spoke in these plans and what are the consequences?

Part 1) Janet Ziegler

Part 2) Paul Christian

Part 3) Jessie Victor

Essay Topic 2

Didion seems to indicate throughout the novel that political life is just as vicious as - and possibly more so - military life. Write an essay on this assertion, in two parts:

Part 1) Inez Victor is presented as a victim of public life. To what extent is she destroyed by her relationship with Harry Victor? What passions is she forced to give up? What role is she forced to inhabit because of Harry's political aspirations?

Part 2) Billy Dillon is presented as a foot-soldier of political life; his motivations seem entirely removed from normal human compassion. How is he constantly undermining normal human interaction? To what extent is verbal and emotional violence the main tool of his trade?

Essay Topic 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

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