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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. How does Simone know the narrator has stayed up late?

2. What does the narrator contemplate doing in Chapter 3?

3. How many other boys attend the event?

4. What does the couple do when a person arrives during their sexual play?

5. What does the narrator ask of Marcelle?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain what happens to Marcelle in Chapter 1.

2. How does the narrator equate sex and violence?

3. Explain what the narrator thinks as he chases down the unknown naked woman, and the reality of who the woman is.

4. Explain the mother's second encounter with the couple in their actions, and her reaction as well as the reaction of the couple.

5. Explain why, despite being modest, Simone and the narrator have the relationship they have?

6. Explain the narrator's trip through the sanitarium.

7. Explain the mother's first encounter with the couple in their actions, and her reaction, as well as their reaction to the mother.

8. Explain how the orgy in Chapter 2 takes place.

9. How does the narrator explain Marcelle's features as she gazes at the ocean?

10. What happens when the narrator finds Simone, and what is the accidental result that rises Marcelle from her room?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Throughout the novel, there are several references to both the eye and the egg, and both seem to be related by the end of the novel. Discuss ways in which the eye and the egg are used in the novel to convey thoughts and concepts. Be sure to examine specific instances in detail. What are similarities? What are differences? What are different ways in which these items are associated? How are they used in the novel? What do they represent?

Essay Topic 2

Throughout the novel, sexual gratification and violence appear to go hand in hand. Discuss this idea in depth. Why is sex and violence tied together in the novel? What are some examples of this theme? What are the narrator's thoughts on this particular link? What does this idea lead the teens to do?

Essay Topic 3

Marcelle is transformed in the novel from a mutual, pious friend of Simone and the narrator to an insane, suicidal sexually deviant psychopath. Explain how and why this transformation occurred. What were signs in the novel that indicated these changes in Marcelle? What pushed her along the path of madness? What role did Simone and the narrator play in this path? What was the end result? Why?

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