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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 response does Coffin get to his turning in of the draft cards in Chapter 4?

2. What is Mailer doing in Chapter 5 when a Time Magazine correspondent approaches him?

3. What does Mailer take from de Grazia in Chapter 4?

4. Who is William Sloane Coffin?

5. With whom does Mailer get into a shouting matching in Chapter 6?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Mailer pointedly note about the black delegates at the march in Chapter 3?

2. How does Mailer characterize the march to the Washington Monument in Chapter 2?

3. What appraisal of Robert Lowell does Mailer make in en route to the Department of Justice in Chapter 3?

4. What does Mailer find at the church in Chapter 3?

5. Why does Mailer agree to join the Pentagon protest in Chapter 2?

6. What is the plan for the Justice Department protest?

7. How does Norman Mailer characterize his hangover in Chapter 2?

8. How is Mailer received after Lowell in Chapter 6?

9. What amusing interchange happens between Mailer and Lowell in this section?

10. What is Mailer's attitude toward protest at the beginning of the novel?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In speaking about the younger marchers who are verbally abused and often beaten and kept in jail for weeks, Mailer calls this protest at the Pentagon a rite of passage. Write an essay about the rites of passage inchoate in it. What individual actions must these young people undergo in this rite? Are they uniformly painful and traumatic? How so? In summation, discuss what these protesters intend to achieve through this rite. What are they accomplishing by undergoing these hardships?

Essay Topic 2

More than midway through the novel, Mailer suddenly goes back in time and explains the planning of the March, events which he was not present for. Write an essay about the planning of the March, discussing which individuals and groups shaped it. What were the divergent opinions in terms of the locations and tactics of the March, and which one's won out in the end? Discuss individuals and groups who fell into conflict, why they did so, and how this affected the development of a strategy. In summation, determine whether the March had a coherent and unified planning process.

Essay Topic 3

Norman Mailer, the author of Armies of the Night, takes on several roles throughout the novel. He is protagonist, author, and historian at the same time. Write an essay about the interchange amongst these three Mailers, divided into three parts:

Part 1) Norman Mailer is the protagonist of the novel, but the narrator's relationship to him is not as intimate as one might expect. Explore how the point of view of the novel makes the character of Mailer as much object as subject. What aspects of the character does the narrator go to great pains to dissect? How does the he function as protagonist to the first book?

Part 2) Discuss the role of Mailer as narrator in the first book of the novel. What does his narration reflect about the author's personality and his relative level of sobriety? Would you say that Mailer the author is a reliable narrator? How does he react both to the events of the march and the actions of Mailer the character?

Part 3) Focus on Mailer's narration in the second book on the novel. He characterizes himself as a historian in this section. How is Mailer the narrator different from both Mailer the author and Mailer the character? Is his narration more or less reliable than it was in Book I? In what way do the two narrators meet at the beginning of Book II?

(see the answer keys)

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