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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 favor has Mailer recently done for Goodman?

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

3. Which character in Chapter 3 is astounded by the fact that the papers were kind to Mailer's performance and not his?

4. What sport does Mailer liken the debate over Vietnam to in Chapter 5?

5. Where do the organizers of the March go for breakfast in Chapter 3?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reasoning does Mailer give for placing himself at the center of the narrative of the novel in Chapter 1?

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

3. Describe the interactions Mailer has with his fellow speakers at the party in Chapter 4.

4. What does Mailer feel about left-wing splinter groups' names in Chapter 3?

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

6. Why are Mailer, Macdonald, and Lowell ambivalent about getting arrested in Chapter 1?

7. What concerns Goodman about the protest planning in Chapter 3?

8. What metaphor does Mailer use in Chapter 5 to describe the Vietnam controvery in America and who takes what sides?

9. How do Ed de Grazia and Mailer scuffle in Chapter 5?

10. Describe Norman Mailer as a character.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the role of notables like Lowell, Mailer, and Macdonald? Write an essay about the role of celebrity in the protest. Why does Mitch Goodman go about convincing Mailer to join the protest, knowing his personal feelings and tendency toward wild behavior? In the latter half of the essay, discuss how the notables actually fare in the March. What do they do to show support for those who face beatings and litigation?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the use of stream-of-consciousness and free association in the narration of Armies of the Night. When are these modernist tools used most prevalently? To what extent do they appear when Mailer the character is swept up in some phenomenal experience? What does this style of narration say about Norman Mailer's state of mind? In the second half of the essay, discuss what Mailer most frequently associates toward. What does this say about his goals as an author in writing this novel?

Essay Topic 3

Mailer's novel is a powerfully eloquent evocation of the pain, passion, and hard realities surrounding the 1967 March on the Pentagon, but it is peppered with instances of his being unable to adequately express his feelings about America, protest and the war. Write an essay, detailing three instances in which Mailer is fantastically ineffective in explaining himself to crowds or the press? How does he explaining this iniquity? What does he feel when he soberly understands media reaction to his words? Sum up the essay with a discussion of how the novel Armies of the Night is, in part, his attempt to right these failures.

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