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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 Mailer take from de Grazia in Chapter 4?

2. In Chapter 1, Mailer claims that America's New Left is drawing its political aesthetic from what country?

3. Why does Mailer's conversation with Macdonald become awkward in Chapter 4?

4. To what does Mailer compare his hangover in Chapter 2?

5. Which of Mailer's books is he clinging onto at he enters the theatre in Chapter 5?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Norman Mailer as a character.

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

3. Why is Dwight Macdonald livid about the newspaper coverage of the Ambassador event in Chapter 3?

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

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

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

7. Why is Mailer late to emcee the event in Chapter 5?

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the novel, New York and Washington, DC, are distinctly juxtaposed where one is a place of planning and thought and the other place of action of danger. Write an essay about the juxtaposition of these two cities. Which character best typifies the aesthetic of New York, in your opinion? Which character best typifies DC? What is the significance of the fact that many of the notables spend Saturday attempting to get back to New York for a society party? What does it mean that Mailer soon forgets about this goal?

Essay Topic 2

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 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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