View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What modern form of execution is described in Chapter 114?

2. In Chapter 84, which character does Horacio mention is gravely ill?

3. In Chapter 16, who joins Horacio in mocking Maga's story?

4. What does Horacio admit to La Maga in Chapter 20?

5. What do Ossip, Maga, and Horacio drink in Chapter 28?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Horacio choose not to help Etienne in Chapter 90?

2. What awful event does Maga describe in Chapter 15?

3. How does Horacio meet Berthe Trepat?

4. How does Maga and Horacio's sex life become eerily unhealthy in Chapter 5?

5. What is the Club's Principle problem with the theories of Morelli, as stated in Chapter 141?

6. How are La Maga and Horacio different?

7. How is the reader introduced to Manolo Traveler in Chapter 143?

8. What point regarding observation does Horacio make in Chapter 84?

9. How does Wong's torture photos affect Horatio's mood for the worse?

10. What conversation regarding their relationship do Maga and Horacio have in Chapter 20?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay on the character of Rocamadour, La Maga's child. Begin by discussing his origins and his life after Maga comes to Europe. To what extent does Maga attempt to rid herself of the burden of raising him? What eventually brings him back to her? After analyzing Rocamadour's progress as a character, discuss his importance to the author. Does he function more as a character or a tool for driving story? How does his death affect everything that follows? Is the child mentioned after Horacio leaves Paris?

Essay Topic 2

What is the millenary kingdom? Write an essay about this prelapsarian concept, where it comes from, and how it connects thematically with the events of the novel. What does the millenary kingdom mean to both Morelli and Horacio? Why do Etienne and Ronald think that La Maga had some innate connection to it? How is the entire Serpent Club, to some extent, existing in its own millenary kingdom until Rocamadour dies? How does this death force them all to face harsh realities? Conclude the essay by discussing whether the millenary kingdom is seen as a positive or negative thing.

Essay Topic 3

The novel of HOPSCOTCH is largely a novel about ideas and flights of bohemian fancy, but existent above and below the would-be sweet life of the narrative is the omnipresent specter of death. Write an essay about death in the novel, focusing on three instances of it. How do the characters struggle and strive to ignore mortality in the novel? How does every instance of it in the narrative seem to shatter some delicate balance? What is destroyed by it?

Part 1) Rocamadour

Part 2) Pola

Part 3) The end of the novel.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 996 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample