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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. In Chapter 141, the Club offers what complaint about Morelli as a theorist?

2. What type of garden does the writer in Chapter 134 recommend to beginners?

3. By what controversial French thinker is the quote is Chapter 136?

4. What does one vendor in Chapter 8 warn Horacio and Maga will kill his fish?

5. Who arrives at Maga's flat with news that Guy Monod is not dead in Chapter 28?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Describe Ossip Gregorovius.

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

4. Why does La Maga feel responsible for Pola's death in Chapter 27?

5. Why does Ossip apologize to Maga in Chapter 24?

6. When does Chapter 7 appear to take place, and why?

7. Why does Horacio get slapped by Bertha Trepat in Chapter 23?

8. How is the reader made aware of Rocamadour's death in Chapter 28?

9. What criticism does Maga make of Horacio at the end of Chapter 3?

10. How does Horacio meet Berthe Trepat?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The fictional guru of Cortazar's Hopscotch is the iconoclast writer Morelli. Morelli at once represents a lofty literary ideal and stands in for Cortazar himself. Write an essay about the character of Morelli, focusing on three parts:

Part 1) Most of Morelli's texts have to do with destroying old literary conventions rather than creating new ones. What conventions does he most pointedly insist be destroyed? Why does he dislike them so intently? How does he think they mar literature?

Part 2) Morelli speaks often in the novel about literature being a surrogate experience. What does this mean? How does Morelli want the reader to relate to the novel? What particularly provocative ideas does Morelli have for achieving this?

Part 3) How is Morelli a fictional stand-in for Julio Cortazar? How are Cortazar's ideas similar to Morelli's? To what extent is Morelli, when the reader meets him in the expendable chapters, writing the novel HOPSCOTCH?

Essay Topic 2

Julio Cortazar juxtaposed two couples in the novel: Horacio and La Maga, and Manolo and Talita Traveler. Write an essay comparing and contrasting these couples and exploring how the author juxtaposes them. How do both intensely doubt the validity of their love? What is their reason for feeling this way? Which seems to be the stronger couple? In summation, why do you think one relationship survives and the other falls apart?

Essay Topic 3

An emotional change occurs in Horacio between the death of Rocamadour and Horacio's arrival in Buenos Aires. He tells Ossip he wants anonymity and develops a plan for his relationship with the Travelers. Write an essay about this shift from sensation to observation in Horacio. What does he want from Manu and Talita, and how does he go about getting it? Whom does he have to use in the process? Discuss how this attempt at dispassion eventually pushes him into a sort of madness. What is Cortazar saying about the need to express emotion, no matter how painful?

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