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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What sacred contract does Maman feel that Jaromil is violating?
(a) His loyalty to her over all other women.
(b) His original, baby-like innocence.
(c) His loyalty to her over his father.
(d) His trust and confidence in her without shame.

2. Why does Xavier stay in the woman's room when her husband comes home?
(a) He wants to confront her husband.
(b) He does not have time to leave.
(c) He wants to protect her from danger.
(d) He wants to put the woman in danger as a form of revenge.

3. What does Jaromil think is the quintessential surrealist object?
(a) The telephone receiver with the dangling cord.
(b) The chair leg if seen by itself.
(c) The statue of Apollo.
(d) His mother's light blue perfume bottle.

4. In confiding to Jaromil, what does Maman say is her greatest love?
(a) Literature.
(b) Family life and stability.
(c) Her son.
(d) Her husband.

5. What does Jaromil see as the sign that his verses have true power?
(a) The artist's enthusiastic reaction.
(b) The emotion on his mother's face when she reads them.
(c) The poems' ability to stand on their own as independent works.
(d) His own thrill at the sounds of the words.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does Jaromil not react to the words his mother painted for his room redecoration?

2. Why does Jaromil like the girl in the white coat who works at the store?

3. Why does Maman not want to go to the lake on vacation?

4. How does Maman have complete control of her son?

5. How do Jaromil and Maman reach the lake resort?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who is Jaromil's only school friend? What picture do these two children present?

2. What does the artist want most of all for Maman? Why is this difficult for her?

3. In Xavier's interactions with the woman in the apartment, what role does water play?

4. Throughout the second half of Part 3, what do Jaromil and the university girl think about their love? What impression does their opinion give to the reader?

5. Given the first three paragraphs of Part 2, what leads the reader to believe that this character is Jaromil? What clues tell the reader that it is someone else?

6. "For real life is elsewhere. The students are pulling up cobblestones, overturning cars, making barricades; their entrance into the world is noise and magnificent, illuminated by flames and glorified by explosions of tear gar grenades" (Part 4, pg 175). What does this mean in the context of Jaromil's life?

7. Why is Maman angry at Jaromil because of her love life? Is her anger justified?

8. How are Jaromil's university experiences told in the novel? What message does this convey to the reader about the scope of the novel?

9. What does Xavier notice most about the woman in the apartment? How does the woman use her eyes?

10. At the ski lodge, Xavier kisses the old woman while luring the girl outside in the snow. In this scene, how do the women exchange places in life? How is this emphasized by the colors they wear?

(see the answer keys)

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