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

Short Answer Questions

1. In what London periodical is Inez quoted about refugees?

2. What does Billy Dillon do on the flight to Honolulu to calm himself?

3. Why does one of Janet Ziegler's son's not attend her funeral?

4. Where does Jessie Victor want to get a job?

5. On what small detail does Billy Dillon repeatedly fixate as he describes Dwight and Ruthie Christian?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The narrative of DEMOCRACY is largely centered around a few brief, shattering actions. Write an essay about three such actions in the story. From what do they derive, and what does their occurrence indicate about the characters of the novel? What unexpected consequences result from them? How, in the end, are they all connected?

Part 1) The Paul Christian shootings.

Part 2) Jessie Victor's stow-away trip to Saigon.

Part 3) The fall of Saigon.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay examining the local political situation leading to the Paul Christian killings. Focus on the relationships between the following two people: Wendell Omura and Janet Ziegler, Dwight Christian and Dick Ziegler, and Wendell Omura and Dick Ziegler. What business transactions unite these people? What litigation and what personal affairs? How does the Paul Christian shooting effectively resolve these conflicts? Is it actually connected to the affairs?

Essay Topic 3

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?

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