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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 actions are the Male Nurses performing at the top of the play?

2. What mimic do the patients perform in the background of Scene 11?

3. What device's "singing" is Corday said to have hears in Scene 10?

4. According to Corday's song in Scene 7, to what does Marat's way lead?

5. In Scene 7, what does Corday contend is spurting from Marat's hiding place?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Sade feel the need to write horrific stories of aristocrats while in the Bastille?

2. What historical events have occurred in France in the four years prior to the events of the play-within-the-play?

3. What false story does Corday deliver in her first visit to Marat's lodging?

4. What is the nature of Marat's life in 1793?

5. What is Corday's primary fear regarding the revolution?

6. Why is Coulmier outraged by Marat's Liturgy?

7. Why is Marat particularly outraged by aristocratic revulsion at the executions?

8. What recommendation does Coulmier make to Sade and the assembled actors at the end of Scene 6?

9. What do the apparitions of Scene 26 reveal about Marat?

10. What proclamation about nationalism does Sade make in Scene 18?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In The Marat/Sade, several characters dominate the proceeding without ever speaking a line. These figures represent a authority int he play. How does their appearance reflect something more gentle than their function? What is their function within the role of the bathhouse? How is their true nature revealed in the final moments of the play?

Part 1) The male nurses

Part 2) The sisters

Part 3) Coulmier's family

Essay Topic 2

The Church is regarded with disdain by nearly everyone in The Marat/Sade. It is viewed as a useless institution at best and a perpetrator of oppression at worst. Write an essay about he place of the church in the play. How do Roux, Marat, and the ranting former abbot refer it it? Does Coulmier make any sort of compelling defense of it?

Essay Topic 3

The portrait of Napoleon looms above the playing space through the entirety of The Marat/Sade. What does this symbol represent in the world of the play? What is Sade's attitude toward this totalitarian figure? Are there other figures onstage that represent Napoleon's power, and what is their role in the play? Write an essay on the above prompts.

(see the answer keys)

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