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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. How does Mailer plead at his lawyer's suggestion?

2. Counting his current one, how many wives has Mailer had?

3. What game does Mailer play with a cellmate to pass the time in Chapter 5?

4. In Chapter 3, what city does the Steering Committee meet in?

5. Who is waiting her Mailer when he arrives at booking in Occoquan at the end of Chapter 5?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Norman Mailer is a large, robust, arrogant personality. His placement at the center of most of the novel creates a powerful presence the reader must contend with. Write an essay about the divergent components of Mailer's personality. Begin by discussing his engorged id. How does Mailer revel in excess int he early passages of the novel? What is he trying to achieve? In the second half of the essay, discuss the emerging of Mailer's better angels. How does this reflect another side to Mailer, one that wants to show respect and graciousness? How is the novel as a whole a reflection of this desire?

Essay Topic 2

Near the end of the second book, Mailer enumerates the reasons why some people oppose the war in Vietnam. Write an essay about this logic, focusing on three of the groups he mentions. Do you think their reasoning in sound? What organizations and individuals represent this group in the narrative? Are there modern parallels to this group in today's society?

Part 1) Those who want Asia and, eventually, America to turn Communist.

Part 2) Those who are pacifists.

Part 3) Those who think the war is unjust.

Essay Topic 3

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?

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