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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. Next to what famous left icon's bunk does Mailer lay down at the end of Chapter 6?

2. What is the stated goal of the March, as articulated by the Steering Committee in Chapter 3?

3. In Chapter 1 of Book II, to whom does the "writer" pass the baton?

4. From what era of literature does Mailer saying he is drawing a convention in the beginning of Chapter 1?

5. What does one of the older gentlemen tell a young black man who gets overly angry in Chapter 4?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What metaphor does Mailer draw to the Pentagon in Chapter 4?

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

4. How does Mailer fair in court in Chapter 9?

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

6. What conclusion does Mailer draw from two articles at the end of Chapter 6?

7. What fracas does Mailer get into in Chapter 2?

8. What reasons does Mailer list in Chapter 7 for people to be against the war?

9. Describe the more extreme voices in the march planning as discussed in Chapter 5.

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Throughout Armies of the Night, Mailer interrupts his own narrative to discuss the novel itself and his decisions regarding how to tell the story. Write an essay about these interruptions, their function in the writing, and their effect on the reader:

Part 1) How does Mailer explain his decision to halt the narrative after his arrest? What information does he go back in time to impart before continuing with the events of the march? Discuss what Mailer indicates himself about a writer by this self-referential interruptus. Is he merely indicating that he is an incorrigible trickster?

Part 2) In the final passages of Book I, Mailer interrupts the events in Occoquan to offer a treatise on America's involvement in Vietnam. Why is this passage significant in understanding the development of Mailer the character? To what extent does it illustrate character growth in the story?

Part 3) Discuss the interruption of narration at the beginning of Book II. What significant literary development is happening in the novel at this point, and why is Mailer choosing to halt the story to inform the reader? How does this interruptus serve to mark a complete tone shift in the novel?

Essay Topic 2

In Armies of the Night, Norman Mailer regularly invokes the history of the United States while he tells the story of the Pentagon March. Write an essay about Mailer's desire to present the March as a link in the development of America's social and political infrastructure, choosing three instances from the novel in which he invokes America's collective past. How does he bring up the past in these instances? What do they have to do with the current events involving the March? What specific point does the author seem to be making in this comparison?

Essay Topic 3

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?

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