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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 Eight: The Republic, what does Deborah say that her friend said about her husband?

2. In Chapter Seven: The Black and Blueish Darkness, what does Deborah say is her mother's background?

3. In Chapter Eleven: Footsteps in the House, who does Deborah say appeared at her home?

4. In Chapter Eight: The Republic, who does Deborah say she compared herself to?

5. In Chapter Ten: X is Where I Am, what does Deborah say Clara said about shortening the past?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Chapter Ten: X is Where I Am, what does Deborah say she told Clara about dating again? How does she say Clara responded?

2. In Chapter Seven: The Black and Bluish Darkness, what does Deborah say she needed to compose? How does she apply this as a metaphor?

3. In Chapter Eleven: Footsteps in the House, who does Deborah say appeared in her house? Why does Debrah say she was wary seeing her?

4. In Chapter Eight: The Republic, where does Deborah say she saw the word "winterized"? How did she apply this to herself?

5. In Chapter Eight: The Republic, who does Deborah say she met? What did Deborah advise?

6. In Chapter Eleven: Footsteps in the House, how do footsteps factor into the chapter? What do they symbolically represent?

7. In Chapter Ten: X is Where I Am, why does Deborah say she thought her sense of direction was lost? How does she say this related to her mother?

8. In Chapter Eleven: Footsteps in the House, where does Deborah say she went and why? What does she say this reminded her of?

9. In Chapter Ten: X is Where I Am, who does Deborah say took to driving her around the city and why? Who also rode with them?

10. In Chapter Eight: The Republic, what does Deborah say her friend told her about her husband? What did Deborah muse about this?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Deborah and Clara compare their lives to their mothers' lives in generations past where women stayed at home and had children. Deborah compares herself to other women past, such as Simon de Beauvoir. How do these different women fight for their freedoms within the constraints of their societies? How do they negotiate freedom, and what cost do they pay for the freedoms they have? Choose at least five women in the autobiography to compare and align for this paper.

Essay Topic 2

In many interactions in the autobiography that Deborah notices, from Big Silver in the beginning and another Big Silver in the middle, to the man taking up the table in the Eurostar, men take up a space that women do not, or have to try to, exist in. How does Deborah's observations of this tie to her discussion of being a minor or major character? How are these experiences of suppression similar or different than what Deborah's mother or other older generations would have experienced? Why do you think these experiences still occur in such away still in a modern sense?

Tie this discussion to outside research into microaggressions and the continued struggle for equality. What do these observations show about how a societal struggle evolves and sticks over time? Consider this also thinking about the idea of composition and recomposition. Is a new story being written? Or is an old story being recomposed with different lines?

Essay Topic 3

Deborah Levy begins her autobiography:

"As Orson Welles told us, if we want a happy ending, it depends on where we stop the story" (1).

Why do you think this is the first line of the autobiography? And how does the ending of the book tie into the idea of a happy ending, or an ending where the story stops? How does happiness, in life, in ending, in grieving and death, tie into the autobiography?

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