View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following militant groups chooses to sit and hold their ground at the March?

2. Which of the following is not something Mailer describes as the march begins in Chapter 4?

3. In what month is the March held?

4. What is happening to Mailer at the end of Chapter 6?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. How is the crowd becoming unruly in Chapter 4?

2. How does Dick Fontaine figure into the events of this section?

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

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

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

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

7. What train of people following the the march in Chapter 4?

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

9. How does Dellinger go about planning the march in Chapters 2 and 3?

10. Describe the several movements the arrested marchers have to make in this section?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

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

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,108 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample