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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. Who comes in the room and prods Joe's body?

2. How does he name the days of the week and months?

3. What are the guys in the train station that Joe sees playing to pass the time?

4. Joe loses track of everything but what?

5. Why do the American boys like Lucky in Paris?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the prostitute that Joe thinks he loves handle the situation?

2. What does Joe imagine as he waits for the nurse to return and do you think he is overreacting?

3. What do you think it means when Joe thinks that two billion people have been pushing the lid of his coffin down and covering him with dirt and stone.

4. What does the nurse think Joe wants at first when Joe starts tapping?

5. Why does Joe think he's in England?

6. What does the little guy waiting for the train with Joe say? How does Joe answer him? What do they do then?

7. What does Joe think about to try and use his mind?

8. What did Lucky survive in America and how did she survive it?

9. Describe Bonnie Flannigan and what does she tell Joe?

10. What does the day nurse do with Joe?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Electric pain shakes him hard and throws him back into bed, exhausted. He feels sweat all over beneath bandages that wrap him top to bottom. Knowing he is hurt badly, he feels his heart pounding but cannot hear his pulse. This means he is "stone deaf".

1. Do you think the normal reaction in Joe's situation would be to want to die? Why or why not?

2. Discuss the ways in which you believe Joe's pain might be affecting his mind and emotions.

3. Joe has found out by logical deduction that he is deaf. How do you think that knowledge has affected him? Use examples from the book to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

War is one of the most common occurrences in the history of humankind. Discuss one of the following:

1. Analyze how Joe feels about WWI. Are his feelings typical of others in the book? Are his beliefs about the war justifiable? Explain with examples.

2. Does your belief about WWI change as you read this book? What about your beliefs about war in general? Explain with examples from the text and your own experience.

3. Many resources throughout the ages have been used in the pursuit of war-related activities. Does the war in this book justify the loss of life and resources? Why or why not? Does any war justify the same?

Essay Topic 3

Joe Bonham wonders why people are so inconsiderate, and feels more like he is coming out of ether rather than hung over, and is tired of hearing that his father is dead and going home. Father can die only once, so the phone must be part of a dream.

1. Joe is lying in a VA hospital with horrific injuries. He feels like he is coming out of ether. He is. The world at the moment seems unreal to him. Explain the flashbacks and images that Joe has in his head at the beginning of the book.

2. Almost all of this book is written as flashbacks to Joe's life before he was injured. How did this narrative technique enhance the book? Given Joe's injuries, discuss any other options the author may have had to tell the story.

3. How did the fact that this book is almost entirely flashbacks affect the pace? What about the plot? How did it enhance or obscure the themes?

(see the answer keys)

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