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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 Luzhin usually travel to school?

2. At the end of Luzhin's first day of play against Turati, what does Luzhin feel unable to do?

3. Why is Luzhin afraid of at school?

4. How does the woman Luzhin meets in Germany (his future wife) think of his father?

5. How old is young Luzhin at the beginning of the novel?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Luzhin's father compare his son to fictional characters?

2. Before playing with his son, how does Luzhin's father consider his own chess abilities?

3. How does Luzhin's future wife feel about introducing him to her family?

4. What authors does Luzhin like to read?

5. What problem does Luzhin have getting to his game with his final rival?

6. How does Luzhin's father die?

7. How doe Luzhin's fiancee seem like a dream to him?

8. How does Valentinov view Luzhin?

9. How does Luzhin respond to his fiancee's parents' home?

10. When Luzhin watches the chess game between his classmates, what move excites him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Luzhin's father expects his son to follow the patterns of the father's novels. Discuss Luzhin's father's expectations.

1) What effects do his father's expectations have on Luzhin? How much is Luzhin aware of his father's expectations, and how does he react to them?

2) How are Luzhin's father's expectations echoed in his wife's expectations?

3) What would Luzhin's father's relationship with a normal, average son be like? How would his expectations play out?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the relationships of parents and children in the novel.

1) How does Luzhin relate to his father? How does this relationship affect Luzhin throughout his life? How does this relationship evoke the relationship of Luzhin's father and grandfather?

2) What do parents expect from their children in the novel? What does Luzhin's father expect from him? What about his mother? What do Luzhin's wife's parents expect from her?

3) How do parents and children feel about each other? Do they love each other? What other emotions are related to parents and children?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss art and reflections of reality in the novel.

1) How is Luzhin's father's writing a reflection of reality? How is it a projection of his father's desires, a world of wish fulfillment? How does his writing compare to reality?

2) How do Luzhin's drawings reflect reality, and how do they reflect his perception of reality?

3) How is Luzhin's chess playing an art, and how is it not an art? How does it relate and compare to music? How does it reflect reality? How does it show Luzhin's perception of reality and his own wish fulfillment?

(see the answer keys)

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