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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 say one must prepare for?

2. Where did the narrator eat a seafood dinner with his sister and her fiance in Chapter 4?

3. What is the name of the narrator's father?

4. How does the narrator's mother say that Melvin Weiner gave himself colitis?

5. What does the narrator's mother tell him to give to his father in Chapter 4?

Short Essay Questions

1. About what do the narrator's parents coddle him regarding his knee in Chapter 4?

2. What were the narrator's father's ambitions for him growing up?

3. What does the narrator say he grew up to NOT be, at least, in Chapter 4? Why?

4. What are the protagonist's principle memories of his father from early childhood?

5. What does the narrator's mother believe he has been eating in Chapter 2? How does she react?

6. What does the narrator's father urge him to take lessons in? Why?

7. What is the story the narrator tells in the beginning of Chapter 4? Why does he do what he does in this story?

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

9. What is Chapter 2 primarily about?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the role of the character of Dr. Spielvogel in the novel. What literary device does this character embody?

Essay Topic 2

What does the narrator say regarding the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud? Why is this relevant to the novel? What chapter is named after the writings of Freud? Why?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the theme of Sexual Obsession in Portnoy's Complaint. How does this theme intertwine with the other themes presented? How does this aspect of the narrator's personality drive his action?

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