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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 drawing does Cy search for and find near the end of the book?

2. Who are Grace and Maximus?

3. What has Claudia been doing for eight years?

4. Why do tattooists stand apart from the tricksters and freaks?

5. About what do the soldiers clown around with Grace?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What are Sedak's motives in attacking Grace?

3. How is Grace described at the beginning of "The Lady of Many Eyes"?

4. When Grace is out of the hospital and visits Cy, how is her body described and how does Cy respond?

5. What gives a possible hint to a terrible secret in Grace's past?

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

7. How does Cy compare Coney Island to Morecambe?

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

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

10. What secret of Claudia's does Grace hold?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Part 2, "Babylon in Brooklyn," the game of chess is introduced by the idea that chess is Varga's passion, and participants do not maintain European manners, but play viciously and inconsiderately. Answer the following questions and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. What characters are most involved in chess? How are they involved? Give examples.

2. Cy thinks he can understand who Grace is by understanding how she plays chess. Is he successful? What does he learn about Grace from her chess-playing style?

3. Grace is playing chess when Sedak assaults her. How is chess symbolic of this assault? Does Sedak achieve checkmate? Does Grace and Cy later achieve checkmate? Explain.

4. Why do you think Chess is so important in a novel which is predominantly about the world of the tattoo parlor? Do chess and tattoos belong together somehow?

Essay Topic 2

As Cy is working for Riley after his mother has died, Cy continues to judge life by Reeda's standards for many years after she dies. Eventually, he begins to judge life by Riley's standards. After he has moved to Brooklyn and lives in a world of which Riley nor Reeda know anything, their ideas still greatly influence his interpretations of the life around him. Answer the following questions and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. Discuss how Riley's influence is still a large part of Cy's life in America.

2. Discuss how his mother's ideas inform Cy's adult life--be sure to include specific examples.

3. At what point in Cy's life does Cy begin formulating his own ideas about life? Give examples. Do Reeda's and Riley's influence ever completely fade out of Cy's mind?

Essay Topic 3

In Part 1, "Salvaging Renaissance," Cy thinks that every stage in the passage of life leaves physical mementos and that tattoos can be briefly upsetting, but eventually they become just part of the anatomy. Answer the following questions and write a well-developed, cohesive essay using examples from the text and your research or personal experience:

1. What do the above thoughts mean to you? Do you believe the ideas to hold truth?

2. When Cy thinks that eventually tattoos become just part of the anatomy, do you think he is suggesting that tattoos have little lasting value? If so, how does he value his work?

3. If tattoos record life's moments, why do you think some people go through much pain and expense to have a tattoo removed later?

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