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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 does the narrator suggest that he and Sean do together?

2. Where does the narrator spend his free time during this Summer?

3. How does the narrator behave during the event in #163?

4. What does Sean call a group of men he accidentally encountered having sex in a public bathroom?

5. Sean contacts the narrator to tell him that he had to leave their relationship because the narrator was ______________.

Short Essay Questions

1. Who is Sean and how did the narrator meet him?

2. How does the narrator's decreasing shame mirror what is going on in the gay community in general?

3. Where does the narrator move to instead of going to Harvard where he has been accepted into a graduate program?

4. What are a couple of topics that Lou tries to educate the narrator on?

5. Why is Lou desperate to get married and how does the narrator help him?

6. What is the significance of the author's using the present tense for scene in which the narrator engages in group sex in the subway restroom?

7. What happens to the narrator after Sean is gone?

8. What is the reality of Lou's life as an engaged man?

9. Why is the New York experience so important to the narrator's longing to be part of a community?

10. What is significant about the energy created among the men after the group sexual encounter in the subway restroom

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe the major settings for the novel. Why does White use the settings he does? What is the time period of the story? How important is the time period to the attitudes and issues of the characters?

Essay Topic 2

The latter part of the novel takes place in the late 1960s as America is experiencing free love, war protests, gay liberation and radical shifts in music. Research this period in America and create a multimedia presentation of the clothes, food, music and people during

Essay Topic 3

The theme of struggling with personal identity is an important one in this novel. Describe how it extends through setting, character and issues and provide examples for each.

(see the answer keys)

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