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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 business was Artie's father in before the war?

2. How does Artie’s father characterize his relationship with women?

3. What starts to happen in the town where Vladek and Anja live after they've had their son?

4. What happens to disturb Vladek and Anja’s peace in 1939?

5. How did Vladek end up in the army after all?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. 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?

4. Describe the partition of Poland under the Nazis.

5. What tasks are Vladek and the other prisoners given after the battle?

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

7. Describe Vladek’s experience during battle.

8. Describe Vladek’s dream and its meaning.

9. How is it that Vladek comes to know English?

10. What animals are people depicted as, in Maus?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

During the Holocaust, the Germans described the Jews as rats, a pestilence in civilized cities. What explains Art Spiegelman’s depiction of Jews as mice, Germans as cats, and Poles as pigs? What is the effect of this characterization?

Essay Topic 2

How would Maus be different if it were written from a female perspective? What if it were a daughter trying to get her mother’s story? What parts of the book might remain the same? What parts of the book would be completely different?

Essay Topic 3

What is missing from this book? What should have been covered or presented that was not? What is the effect of this absence? Describe an element that ought to have been covered, and explain why it would have made the book stronger.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 826 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample