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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. Part 4, Chapter 1 begins with an anecdote about which poet?

2. Why does Xavier leave the beautiful woman?

3. Why is Jaromil filled with pride after sleeping with the redhead girl?

4. What does Xavier take as an invitation to enter the house?

5. When Jaromil and the university girl are kissing in her house, what does Jaromil think about obsessively?

Short Essay Questions

1. Maman and the engineer disagree about where Jaromil was conceived. Why is this an important debate?

2. How does Jaromil prepare for a date with a girl? How does his preparation actually make him completely unprepared for the date?

3. Why is Jaromil thrilled at the thought of catching Magda, the family maid, in the bathtub? What does this say about his sexual development?

4. As Jaromil reaches adolescence, why is manhood so important to him?

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

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

7. 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?

8. What revelation does Maman have about her husband one night after a party? How does this affect her relationship with Jaromil?

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

10. Consider titles of the novel, sections, and chapters. How do the titles help to establish the frame of the story?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Does the story of Xavier's time in the yellow house border on the fantastic? What makes the story plausible and what makes it fantastical?

Essay Topic 2

What role does guilt play in Jaromil's life? How does Maman use guilt, and how is she susceptible to it herself?

Essay Topic 3

How does the beautiful blond girl's death prefigure Jaromil's own death? How have both people been betrayed by Xavier?

(see the answer keys)

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