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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 Simone do following her violent spasms?

2. What does the narrator admit he cares for in terms of sex?

3. What sport does Simone grow to love?

4. What does the narrator do for Simone during their first stop?

5. How does the couple travel to Spain?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator believe is the goal of his own lack of moral discipline?

2. Why does the narrator claim he does not care for "normal" pleasures, and why even dirty pleasures have become unsatisfying?

3. What happens to Marcelle in Chapter 8, and why?

4. Discuss Simone's episode with the raw bull testicle. Include what happens when she first receives it, and the end result.

5. Describe what Simone begins enjoying doing with eggs at the beginning of Chapter 6.

6. What does the confusion between the cardinal and the narrator on the part of Marcelle seem to show?

7. Explain how the author notes the change in Marcelle as he describes her actions when Simone and the narrator are freeing her from the sanitarium.

8. Explain how Simone and the narrator travel to Spain undetected.

9. Explain what happens to Simone as she attempts to masturbate on the bicycle, and the narrator's initial reaction.

10. Explain why Simone and the narrator do not speak of eggs, or of any other portion of their unusual sexual relationship.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

In Chapter 4, the narrator notes the curiosity that black-haired Simone wears a black garter belt and stockings, whereas blond Marcelle wears a white belt and stockings. This comparison, however, does far deeper than hair color and clothing choice. What is the author noting about the characters in this passage? Using the rest of the story, does this comparison hold true throughout the novel? Why or why not? What else can this comparison of light and darkness be used to represent? Why?

Essay Topic 3

The ending description of the dead priest's eye, appearing as Marcelle's eye, looking out at the narrator from between the thighs of Simone, covered in urine and ejaculation fluid, is a highly visual representation of several key points in the novel. Discuss each of these in detail. What is the symbolism of the entire image? What does it represent? Why does the narrator see the eye of Marcelle? What does he equate the urine and ejaculation fluid to? What does it symbolize in terms of the themes within the novel? What moment in the novel does each represent independently?

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