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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 the narrator call "Astral sperm and heavenly urine"?

2. How would the narrator start again with Marcelle?

3. What does Simone compare to the smell of the anus?

4. What does the couple discuss concerning eggs at the beginning of Chapter 7?

5. Why does the narrator claim others see the world as decent?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain the change in Simone following the death of Marcelle.

2. What does Marcelle seem to fear most at the end of Chapter 7, and what does the narrator realize this fear relates to?

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

4. Based on the narrator's claims at the end of Chapter 6, what does the episode with eggs indicate about the future of the characters?

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

6. Describe the sexual fantasy of Simone and the narrator about Marcelle in Chapter 6.

7. Why does the narrator claim he believes Simone urinates on the corpse of Marcelle?

8. Explain the narrator's actions as the couple stops the first time on their journey home from the sanitarium in Chapter 5.

9. Why does the narrator claim the universe seems decent to some, and why they fear lewdness?

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

Throughout the novel, the parents of the children are brought up in terms of their inability to deal with the clear sexual nature of the relationship of their children, or their clear desire to avoid scandal. Explain the reaction of Simone's mother in the novel. What was her response to the sexual relationship? What did she do? Isa she at least partly responsible for the end result of the novel? Why or why not? Should the narrator's parents have sought him out, even after his threatening note? Why or why not? Why did they not do so? Were they partly to blame for the deaths of Marcelle and the priest? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

Word association and thought association is used throughout the novel, both as a visual tool but also as a tool to convey reasons for certain behaviors. Choose one of the topics below, and write a complete analysis of how the word is associated in the novel, and what this association means in terms of the characters and/or the storyline.

1.) Associations with lightning

2.) Associations with urine

3.) Associations with the color red

4.) Associations with the Milky Way

(see the answer keys)

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