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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. What is Grace doing as Cy is finishing with the soldier?

2. Who are Grace and Maximus?

3. What does Cy realize about the skin after the doctor talks to him?

4. What does Grace describe in graphic details to the soldiers?

5. When Cy walks Grace home when he first meets her, what does he think about at the door?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Cy first meet Grace?

2. How does Grace send Eva's ghost packing?

3. What does Cy think about Coney Island and how do you interpret that?

4. How does Claudia become to have so many tattoos and to what does that lead Artura and Claudia?

5. What is the connection between the game of chess and Grace?

6. When Cy is somewhat inebriated in Vargas, he makes what connection between Grace and his mother and how does he react to that connection?

7. Describe the first meeting between Arturas and Claudia Overas and Cy.

8. How does Cy compare Coney Island to Morecambe?

9. How had Grace come to be known by some many so that perhaps Sedak knows of her and judges her?

10. What does Cy think he sees in a neighboring apartment that makes him question his sanity?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

There are several metaphors throughout the book, Electric Michelangelo, perhaps one of the most striking is that of Grace and her tattoos. Choose one of the following and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. Define metaphor and symbolism and compare the two using specific examples both from the book and other sources. Which do you feel is more effective? Which seems better at expressing the idea of an abstract concept? Why would you use one over the other--give specific examples.

2. For what do you think Grace's body is a metaphor? Explain using specific examples. Does the metaphor work for you?

3. Write a real or hypothetical situation in your personal experience that includes one or more abstract concepts and then create a metaphor to express that experience. Next, choose a way to use symbolism in the telling of the experience. Which way seems more effective at portraying the experience?

Essay Topic 2

Grace is probably the most complex character in the book. Most readers might even say that they don't ever fully understand her or her motives. Answer the following questions and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. What is it about Grace that intimidates the soldiers in Cy's shop in Part 2, "The Lady of Many Eyes"?

2. Besides being intimidated, the soldiers are also sexually attracted to Grace. Why do you think that is true? Or do you? Which emotion of the soldiers seems stronger--fear or attraction? Is there something about their fear that actually intensifies their attraction?

3. The soldiers imply that Grace's sanity is questionable. What do you think? Is the way she treats the soldiers sane? Why or why not?

4. What do you think is the significance of Grace's action when she confronts the soldiers and licks her thumb and touches the soldier's cheek?

Essay Topic 3

In Part 2, "Babylon in Brooklyn," Cy meets Artura and Claudia Overas.

1. Compare and contrast Cy and Artura.

2. Compare and contrast Grace and Claudia.

3. Why do you think Claudia has a larger role in the novel than Artura, who is after all, a tattoo artist like Cy and it is a book predominantly about tattoos?

(see the answer keys)

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