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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. Celine wrote during the rise of National Socialism in what country?

2. What language did Celine describe as regal in a quote Kristeva uses in Chapter 10?

3. What kind of narrative machine does Kristeva say leaves her shaken to the point of exaltation?

4. Kristeva says literature undermines itself when it attempts to analyze what?

5. Celine was of what nationality?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Kristeva say Celine's depictions of females relate to the abject?

2. How does Kristeva seem to feel about Celine's Nazism?

3. What does Kristeva mean when she says Celine is neither actor nor martyr?

4. What does Kristeva say about how Celine's novels are realistic?

5. Explain how Kristeva says Celine used grotesque acts in his works.

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

7. How did Celine seem to feel about the French language and the English language?

8. Describe Celine's mother type of character.

9. How did Celine use strong women in his works?

10. How does Kristeva say Celine's work represents the division caused by economic inequality?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explore Celine's use of interesting stylistic choices in his writing. What are a few of the stylistic choices Kristeva points out? Why does she link his interesting use of language to the abject? What does Kristeva believe is Celine's goal with language? How can this goal be linked back to the abject?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Celine's views on human suffering and Kristeva's interpretation of this. Why did he believe that to be human is to suffer? How does Kristeva relate this sentiment to the abject? How does she then relate suffering to horror? What does she say man is afraid of? How do these feelings unify people?

Essay Topic 3

What does Kristeva mean when she says abject literature is an unstable category? What qualities does literature have to have to be abject? What is the narrative in abject literature supposed to be like? How does this cause a problem for the writer? How does language cause a problem?

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