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This test consists of 5 short answer questions and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What part of Corday's body does Duperret kiss repeatedly in Scene 22?

2. What affliction begins to show itself in Sade as he is whipped?

3. In Scene 23, what does Marat warn the rich will do the the poor at a moment's notice?

4. How do the Singers say they will impart the words they cannot speak freely?

5. In appeasing Coulmier in Scene 18, which is not a group to which the Singers pledge fidelity?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Interruptions are common throughout the Marat/Sade. The play-within-the-plsy is stopped several times int he middle of the action. Write an essay about these interruptions:

Part 1) Coulmier is the character that most often interrupts the action of Sade's play. What are his concerns and grievances? How are they received by the actors and Sade? Are these concerns well-founded?

Part 2) Which inmates interrupt the performance? Why dot hey do so, and how do these unexpected interruptions reflect something essential about the action onstage? What effect do they create?

Part 3) There is one planned interruption in the play-within-the-play, right before the death of Marat. Why does Sade include this interruption? How is it intended to inform the action of the final moments of the play?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

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

(see the answer keys)

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