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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. What is the silver-haired poet's attitude toward the poetry reading in the auditorium?

2. Why does Maman feel guilty about her husband's death?

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

4. Why is the famous poet booed by the audience after he reads a poem?

5. In desperation for a response, what does Jaromil mail to the famous poet?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Jaromil view the loss of his virginity as a metaphysical event? Is his perception true?

2. Why is Jaromil attracted to the dark-haired girl? What does this attraction show about his development as a character?

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. After the death of Maman's husband, how does she change? Though Kundera does not make it overt, is this change for the better or for the worse?

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

7. When Jaromil returns at midnight after walking the university girl home, Maman becomes hysterical because she was worried about him. What does this scene show about these two people's perception of love?

8. "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?

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

10. Why does Xavier leave the woman behind at the end of Part 2?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What implications are there in Xavier's dance with the older woman? Are details of her age seen as something beautiful? How does this dance show Xavier's triumph over a girl his own age? What about over his own age? How is his love for the blond girl incomplete without his demonstration of love for the old woman?

Essay Topic 2

What is the purpose of Part 6? Is it helpful to be drawn out of Jaromil's life for a brief time? How far away from Jaromil is the reader actually drawn? What literary advantages does this section of the book have: propel the action forward, reveal characters, create a foil, or something else?

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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