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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. Where does Corday tell Simone that Marat's enemies are gathering in Scene 9?

2. With what term does Sade describe the execution of Damiens?

3. Which of the following is not a term hurled at the poor when a shop is looted?

4. What are the children fighting over in the streets, according to Corday?

5. What do the assembled inmates do in Scene 3?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Coulmier characterize the asylum in Scene 2?

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

3. What interrupts the murder of Marat in Scene 31?

4. How does Corday's sickness affect her performance?

5. Describe Jacques Roux.

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

7. How does the Herald calm Coulmier in Scene 11?

8. How doe Marat and Sade differ in their attitudes toward violent action?

9. Besides Coulmier, who interrupts the action of the play in this section?

10. What final points does Coulmier make in the Epilogue?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The Marat/Sade is an inherently grotesque piece. It lingers in the dark, violent, and perverse places of human experience. Write an essay about Weiss's use of the grotesque in the play. How do the inmates, Sade, and the time period of the play-within-the-play reflect the grotesque? What is Weiss calling horrific in nature? Subjugation? Revolution? Life in general?

Essay Topic 2

Much of the dialogue in The Marat/Sade focuses on the link between theory and violent action. Write an essay about his link, focusing on the two dominant symbols of each. How are they connected? What responsibility doe the author seem to imply the theorist has regarding the enacting of his ideas?

Part 1 ) Marat's quill and paper

Part 2) The guillotine

Essay Topic 3

The point-of-view of the play-within-the-play in The Marat/Sade is transitory in nature. Write an essay about the various points-of-view, focusing on the following three points:

Part 1) Most of the cast of Sade's play represent the poor of France, led in their songs by the four Singers. To what extent is the play told from the point-of-view of the common rabble? What is their position on the events of the play?

Part 2) How does the cadence and tone of the play-within-the-play change as Marat's mental state and health deteriorate? How is the play a chronicle of his final hours, his doubts, and his anger at the Establishment?

Part 3) To what extent is the play exclusively Sade's perspective on Marat's life and work? What is his position on the radical revolutionary, and how does he present this view in the play?

(see the answer keys)

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