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| Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. Which of Mailer's writer friends is present in the Volkswagen with him in Chapter 2?
2. Which of the following is not a reason Mailer gives for a person's opposition to the War in Chapter 7?
3. What nationality is the "Nazi" who antagonizes Mailer in Chapter 2?
4. Which of the following titles is not one that Mailer the narrator gives himself, Lowell, and Macdonald in Chapter 4?
5. Who is waiting her Mailer when he arrives at booking in Occoquan at the end of Chapter 5?
Short Essay Questions
1. What do the Fugs do at the Pentagon in Chapter 5?
2. Describe Norman Mailer's arrest in Chapter 6?
3. What reasons does Mailer list in Chapter 7 for people to be against the war?
4. How does Dellinger go about planning the march in Chapters 2 and 3?
5. Describe the mood of the crown in the beginning of Chapter 4.
6. Describe the more extreme voices in the march planning as discussed in Chapter 5.
7. Why is the Vietnam War fought, according to Mailer in Chapter 7?
8. What bad news greets Mailer when he returns to New York in Chapter 11?
9. How does Mailer think about his family in Chapter 5?
10. What metaphor does Mailer draw to the Pentagon in Chapter 4?
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
Mailer the narrator and historian makes a point of arguing that both the MP's and the marchers are saddened by the violence evoked by the protest. Write an essay analyzing the way Mailer dramatizes the events, giving even-handed account of both sides of the police line. What examples does he give of sensitive and professional MP's? How does he explain the logic behind their brutality and their shame at having committed it? Conversely, how is the violence legally unjustified? How does it result in terror and wild paranoia among the marchers? Is that its intent?
Essay Topic 3
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?
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This section contains 1,156 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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