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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 city is Mailer in at the end of this section?

2. In Chapter 6, Mailer acknowledges that what was present on both sides of the line at the Pentagon?

3. Which of the following is not a reason Mailer gives for a person's opposition to the War in Chapter 7?

4. How many marchers does the New York Times suggest will be at the Pentagon protest in Chapter 5?

5. What word does Mailer use to describe supporters of the ear in Chapter 7?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the mood of the crown in the beginning of Chapter 4.

2. How does Mailer determine it is time to get arrested at the end of Chapter 5?

3. How does Mailer think about his family in Chapter 5?

4. Why is the Vietnam War fought, according to Mailer in Chapter 7?

5. What permits does the Mobilization Committee get in Chapter 4?

6. What do the MP's and the marchers have in common, according to Mailer in Chapter 6?

7. In the detain room in Chapter 3, what strikes Mailer about the people around him?

8. Describe the scene in Occaquan at the beginning of Chapter 6.

9. What comic episode happens when Mailer is getting changed for his arraignment in Chapter 8?

10. What bad news greets Mailer when he returns to New York in Chapter 11?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about the consistent comparison of the marchers in the novel to a conventional army. Begin your discussion of this likening of two armies by focusing on Mailer's connection of the march to his tour of duty in World War II. What are the similarities he mentions? Where is the comparable glory and agony experienced by both groups? How do the marchers have to prove their courage and willingness to sacrifice for comrades? How does this affect the wording used in describing them?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the novel's placement as a work of narrative non-fiction. How is the friction between the literary qualities of the novel and its documentary qualities central to the work's aesthetic? What steps does Norman Mailer take to ensure that Armies of the Night is a work of literary bravado? How does he then undermine these literary conventions by pointedly choosing to invoke a historical tone in the latter passages? What sort of dynamic does this create for the reader?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay about the protest culture that exists in the world of the novel. How does this culture affect the way famous people live their lives: in particular, how does the omnipresence of protest in America affect Mailer's decision to go to Washington, DC? How does the specter of the Martin Luther King, Jr. march on Washington hang over the events of the 1967 March in the novel? To what extent is the protest movement becoming somewhat rote in Armies of the Night?

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