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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Celine often depict very young female characters?
(a) As violent.
(b) As innocent.
(c) As humble.
(d) As sexual.

2. In "Death on the Installment Plan," who teaches the narrator to read?
(a) His mother.
(b) His grandmother.
(c) His brother.
(d) His uncle.

3. Kristeva quotes Celine as saying that the mother gives life without what?
(a) Desire.
(b) Infinity.
(c) Passion.
(d) Love.

4. What act of depravity does Kristeva point out that Celine uses in relation with very young girls to revolt his reader?
(a) Murder.
(b) Theft.
(c) Pedophilia.
(d) Alcoholism.

5. Kristeva says that the reader is thrown into what kind of state when reading Celine?
(a) Uncomfortable.
(b) Familar.
(c) Strange.
(d) Deviant.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Kristeva call Celine's idea that through violent confrontation, each person is reduced to the same, miserable state?

2. Kristeva says Celine saw his home country as becoming dominated by a secret conspiracy by whom?

3. Celine followed what political affiliation?

4. In Celine's "Rigadoon," the work of the writer is compared to the patience of what?

5. Whose writings does Kristeva encounter in "the black, romantic rage"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Kristeva say it makes sense that Celine would say his style was the most important part of his writing?

2. How does Kristeva say Celine displaced the mother in his depiction of very young girls?

3. Why might Kristeva say many of Celine's stylistic choices be called anti-linguistic or anti-grammatical?

4. Why does Kristeva say her reading of Celine will not be a thematic one?

5. How does Kristeva say Celine captures the abject in his writing?

6. In what ways that Kristeva points out do Celine's writings differ from Jewish ideas?

7. Why does Kristeva say that in Germany, even when Jews were seriously persecuted, they were punished with an increased vigor?

8. What does Kristeva say Celine felt was the foundation of human existence?

9. Why would Celine's work not be considered abject when he was actively writing them?

10. How does Kristeva say the hatred of Jews act as a metaphor for the abject?

(see the answer keys)

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