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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 does Mrs. Luzhin hope to interest her husband in?

2. What does Mrs. Luzhin show her husband, in a painting of the Last Supper?

3. What does Luzhin listen to as he lies awake at night?

4. When Luzhin finally comes to his bedroom on his wedding night, where does his wife go?

5. What are townspeople doing in the area where there are tennis courts in the summer, at the beginning of Chapter 13?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Mrs. Luzhin find it difficult to locate her husband at the ball?

2. What does Luzhin think when the lights come on again after Ivan has knocked over the lamp?

3. What does Luzhin see in the window of a stationery store that fascinates him?

4. Why doesn't Luzhin's fiancee ask him about his tuxedo?

5. What memory of his father does Luzhin recall when he stops to buy fruit?

6. What does Valentinov want Luzhin to do for him?

7. What does Luzhin's psychiatrist say about the possibility of him marrying?

8. How does Luzhin act in the days before his wedding?

9. What books that his fiancee brings him in the sanatorium does Luzhin enjoy?

10. What is Luzhin doing when Ivan knocks over the lamp?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

Luzhin is only known by his family name throughout most of the novel, and other major characters are never named at all. Discuss the use of names in the novel.

1) Why is Luzhin only known by his family name throughout the novel? Why is his personal name revealed at the end of the novel?

2) Why are the characters closest to Luzhin, like his wife, never named?

3) Why are characters who are relatively unimportant, like guests at a party or people the Luzhins run into on the street, given names? What does this show about the author's perspective?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss social norms and expectations in the novel.

1) How does Luzhin fit into society, and how do the norms and expectations of society affect him?

2) How are the normal, everyday tasks that people undertake different for Luzhin? How does this affect his ability to fit into society?

3) How do Luzhin's in-laws represent social norms and expectations, and how do they perceive Luzhin?

(see the answer keys)

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