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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. Who is the temperamental roommate who the narrator has for awhile?

2. Where does the narrator spend a lot of time after Sean leaves?

3. Why does the roommate move out of the narrator's apartment?

4. Who does the narrator consider marrying?

5. What does the narrator do in his free time?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the relationship between Maria and the narrator change when she moves to New York?

2. How did the poverty-stricken lives of Betts and Buddy mirror the social deprivation during the times they lived through?

3. What does the narrator come to learn about Lou and what factor will probably preclude his and Lou's relationship from becoming too serious?

4. What eventually happens to Sean who is conflicted by his own identity?

5. How do the narrator's views of himself change according to whose perspective he is viewed in?

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

7. What do the narrator's parents--and society in general--consider to be a "normal" lifestyle for their son?

8. Why does Sean's comment about a group of men having sex in a public restroom as being "subhuman" have a particular sting for the narrator?

9. What does the narrator consider for his life after Paul commits suicide in order to leave a world that rejects people like him?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

The story takes place as America is experiencing the Hippie Generation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, and drug usage in the late 1960s. Explain the significance of these political and cultural events on the narrator and the other homosexual people in his life. How would the narrator's life be different if he were living as a young man today? Explain.

Essay Topic 3

Substance abuse seems to be an unnamed character in the book. How pervasive is the abuse? Why does it have such a prevalent place in the characters' lives? How does it affect the abusers? How does it affect those impacted by the abusers? Explain how an inanimate object or characteristic can be a character.

(see the answer keys)

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