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

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following is not a malfeasance to which Lovett is connected?

2. What object does Inez demand be removed from the hall when she returns to Dwight's house in this chapter?

3. Who informs Inez of the shootings?

4. At Janet's wedding, what does Carol Christian loudly lament not being able to afford for her daughter?

5. In what city did Frank Tawagata assist Harry Victor in his 1972 campaign?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Joan Didion 's style of writing is perhaps most often described as cold, objective, and bloodless. It reflects her background as a journalist. Write an essay in three parts, examining how her narrative style affects the way she presents the shattering events of Democracy. How does she deny her characters a clear emotional life? How does this affect the way these violent and passionate events occur? How does it affect the reader's reaction to them?

Part 1) Jessie Victor's drug addiction.

Part 2) Paul Christian's shootings.

Part 3) Inez Victor's affair and her decision to leave her family.

Essay Topic 3

After the 1972 Presidential campaign, the Victor marriage is marred by overwhelming unhappiness. Write an essay about the marriage of Harry and Inez Victor and how it is pervaded by a sense of wasted talent and opportunity. What possibilities does Inez see for her life that she is not allowed to pursue? How does Harry react to his failure to win the Democratic nomination? In what ways are both Adlai and Jessie Victor products of this deep-seeded sense of waste?

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