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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. In Chapter Five: Gravity, what does Deborah say Celia lent her?

2. In Chapter One: The Big Silver, what does Deborah say the man was eating?

3. In Chapter Six: The Body Electric, what does Deborah say Clara can do?

4. In Chapter Six: The Body Electric, who does Deborah say the man she met at the party reminded her of?

5. In Chapter Three: Nets, what does Debra say the packing up sent her back to?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Chapter One: The Big Silver, what does Deborah Levy say she wrote about the Big Silver conversation after she witnessed it? What does she say she thought about the young woman?

2. In Chapter Four: Living in Yellow, what does Deborah say she repaired? How did this repair become a metaphor?

3. In Chapter Five: Gravity, how does Deborah say she set up her shed? What did she furnish it with?

4. In Chapter Two: The Tempest, what does Deborah say she resented most about her divorce? How does she say she thought of her unhappiness?

5. In Chapter Five: Gravity, who does Deborah say came to her rescue? How did this person rescue her?

6. In Chapter One: The Big Silver, what does Deborah say the young woman talked about? What did the man say in response?

7. In Chapter Five: Gravity, what piece of old writing does Deborah say she compared herself to?

8. In Chapter Four: Living in Yellow, why did Deborah say she painted her walls yellow? Why did she paint them back to white?

9. In Chapter Two: The Tempest, how does Deborah apply the Big Silver metaphor to herself? How does she say she applied it to in her own life?

10. In Chapter Six: The Body Electric, what metaphor from earlier in the book did Deborah apply to the party she went to? How did she apply this metaphor to women?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Cost of Living ends:

"The writing you are reading now is made from the cost of living and it is made from digital ink" (134).

What is "the cost of living"? What is it for Deborah throughout the book? Do different people from the book have different definitions of what the cost is? Use several examples to craft your argument of what the cost really is.

Essay Topic 2

Each of the chapters of Cost of Living has distinct titles, and each of these titles are tied together in segments of two or three themes throughout. Choose one of these segments of two or three chapters and examine how the titles are woven together, and how the titles reflect the content of the chapters. Connect what you find about the symbolism and the metaphor to the message of the book.

Essay Topic 3

Throughout the autobiography, Deborah Levy uses different struggles of race to discuss struggles of feminism. Examples of this include James Baldwin (48,49), and later Fanon (79, 80).

Write about how Levy applies feminism struggles to race struggles. Find one of the authors who Levy writes about, and write what they would say on this topic in addition to another writer you read in research, or have led in previous class. Put them in conversation with one another. What is your opinion of how Levy uses these different voices and aligns these struggles? Is it appropriation or appropriate? What does it do, and where is it unable to go further?

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