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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 does the narrator's father sell?

2. What sport is the narrator obsessed with?

3. What kind of grades does the young narrator make?

4. Where is the narrator's uncle's store?

5. What is the name of the narrator's sister?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Chapter 2 primarily about?

2. What resentments does the narrator recall following the family's move from Jersey City?

3. Why does the young Alex believe he has cancer?

4. What story does the narrator tell about Ronald Nimkin?

5. How did the narrator's father feel about his job? How did he express his feelings to his family?

6. Where does the narrator's father work? What line of business is he in? Where is his "route?"

7. What does Alex say his parents complain about regarding his sister and her husband in Chapter 4?

8. Who is the shikse who came to the young Alex's family's home? Why?

9. What became of the narrator's cousin? Why?

10. What does the narrator speak of regarding his humiliations with his mother as a child in Chapter 3?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What are the predominant metaphors in Portnoy's Complaint? How does the author "set up" these metaphors? How do these major metaphors recur in the text? Define "metaphor" in your answer.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the story of Cousin Heshie and how this relates to the narrator. How did this event and the surrounding circumstances shade his view of shikses and rebellion?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss "Stream of Consciousness" as a stylistic device in the novel. How does this impact the reader's understanding? How does this affect the flow of time?

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