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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 Fowler tell Pyle to do so that the girls will stop mobbing him?

2. What does the French colonel tell the press corps about the war?

3. How was Pyle killed?

4. When things settle down at the House of the Five Hundred Girls, where do Pyle, Fowler and Phuong go?

5. What is in the telegram Fowler receives form London?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is it about Pyle that Fowler cannot put into his cable to his newspaper?

2. What suggestions does Fowler offer Vigot as to who might have killed Pyle?

3. When Fowler offers Pyle a drink of whiskey, how does the conversation go?

4. What signifies a difference in dress between the South and the North of Vietnam?

5. What does Fowler take away from Pyle's apartment?

6. What is Fowler's reaction to the priest who offers to take his confession?

7. Describe how the French manipulate the foreign press corps during the war.

8. When Fowler moves out with a patrol getting out of the area of Phat Diem, who comes in the middle of the night? Why had he come?

9. At the press conference, what is the French colonel's response to the question of French casualties?

10. How does Phuong take the news of Pyle's death?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write your opinion about whether one country should interfere in another country's politics. The French were in Indochina as long time colonialists. The war was actually a movement to get them out of the country. Somewhere along the way, the lines got blurred in the situation and American politicians began to suggest that the war was a necessity to prevent the spread of communism throughout the world. The Vietnamese allies in the country were those who had prospered under French colonialism. You might want to compare America's involvement after the French leave to America's search for weapons of mass destruction in modern day Iraq.

Essay Topic 2

Write an opinion paper on censorship of the press during a time of war. Do ordinary citizens need to know what is going on in the war? Do they have a right to know? The French were releasing only good news and censoring any reference to a defeat. What effect might it have had on the American public had they known what was really going on inside French Indochina? Is it possible that Americans would have told their leaders not to get them involved if they had known the full story? Discuss how censorship is a way of controlling the minds of people.

Essay Topic 3

Write your opinion as to whether Graham Greene glamorizes the use of opium in the novel. About the only negative thing mentioned as to opium use in the novel is the negative effects it has on the libido after four pipes. Fowler is quite open about his usage. Vigot is obviously aware of it. Is there a certain glamor implied in the fact that the beautiful Phuong serves Fowler the pipes much like serving tea? With illegal drug usage so rampant in today's world, what is your opinion of the drug use in the novel? Do you think Greene is advocating opium usage or just telling it like it was?

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