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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. Which of the following does Kareem Abdul-Jabbar quote in the novel?

2. What spice does Orkideh note adding to her tea?

3. Which of the following does Cyrus hold as a hero?

4. Per the novel, how does the Big Book refer to resentment?

5. How does the novel render the term “negargari”?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Cyrus explain his collapse in the museum to the docents?

2. Why does Cyrus posit Sang Linh is able to function so soon after Orkideh’s death?

3. Why does Ali retain contraband records in Iran?

4. Why, per Cyrus, is it particularly American to discount dreams?

5. Why does Cyrus sit outside with Zee at a café near Prospect Park?

6. What is Cyrus’s early publication history?

7. In the novel, what is a myth?

8. How is Ferdowsi commissioned to write the Shahnameh?

9. How does Ali note his wife had looked at him?

10. What was the content of Shipping and Handling?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the significance of the interlude between Chapters Seventeen and Eighteen? Explain.

Essay Topic 2

Sources attest to the presence of Martyr! on best-seller lists. Assuming that sales figures reflect popularity, what accounts for the popularity of the novel? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Section divisions, their titles, and chapter numbering / division schema are all components of paratext. That is, they are not part of the text but are associated with it closely and affect its meaning. What significance, if any, accrues to the chapter-numbering scheme at work in Martyr!? If there is significance, how does that significance manifest? If there is not, what in the novel supports the paratextual divisions that are in place?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 502 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample