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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 Artie’s father describe Anja’s relationships before marriage?

2. What is Artie's father doing when Artie sees him again in Chapter 2?

3. What effect did Vladek’s shooting have in the war, during the battle before he was captured?

4. What happened in the Bielsko factory while Vladek and Anja were away?

5. How did Vladek’s father try to keep him out of the army?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Anja’s family invest in Vladek’s ambitions?

2. What explains Vladek’s decision to marry Anja and not Lucia Greenberg?

3. Describe Vladek’s dream and its meaning.

4. How does Artie’s father characterize himself in the time before he met Anja?

5. Describe the partition of Poland under the Nazis.

6. What doubts does Vladek have about Artie’s comic book idea?

7. How was Vladek kept out of the Polish army the first time, and why did he end up going into the army the next year?

8. Describe Vladek’s health when Artie sees him again at the beginning of Chapter 2.

9. What political news do Vladek and Anja hear on their way to Czechoslovakia?

10. How does Artie characterize his father’s relationship with Mala, his wife?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What parts of Maus do you think would be applicable to any traumatic experience? Describe the aspects of Art Spiegelman’s book that could be universalized. Which parts could not be?

Essay Topic 2

Identify the most important plot points in Maus. What is at stake in each of these moments? What possibilities do these moments present, and how are those possibilities channeled into specific actions or events? How does the plot chart its course among other alternative or possible plots?

Essay Topic 3

Assess the ending of Maus. What is your interpretation of the conclusion? What is its effect on you. What effect do you think Art Spiegelman intended it to have? Using examples from the text, describe your expectations for the conclusion of the novel.

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