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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. When does Claude finally break down and admit his hurt and disappointment?

2. Why does Christine pack up everything to return to Paris?

3. Who is the art dealer who has made a fortune out of buying pieces and manipulating their prices?

4. Why was Mahoudeau sent to Paris from Plassans?

5. Back in Paris, Claude returns to walking the streets and leaves what up to Christine?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain how Claude turns on Christine as the reason his grand painting is not coming together for him.

2. When Claude finally locates his painting, how does he once again feel rejected?

3. How is the neglect of Jacques symbolized?

4. How is history repeated with Claude and his huge canvas?

5. Describe the attraction Jory has developed for Mathilde.

6. What is Claude's behavior after a party at Sandoz's house that alarms Christine?

7. How does Dubuche's appearance at the Thursday night gathering indicate his ultimate destruction as an avant-guarde architect?

8. Aside from the poverty of Claude's studio, how does the reader come to understand how poor Claude actually is?

9. How does Zola show that the young woman is a proper young lady and not a trollop as Claude suspects?

10. How has Fagerolles become swallowed up by the commercial world of art?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay of at least two typed, double-spaced pages on the topic of The Development of the Rift Between Claude and Christine. Using this line from the end of Chapter 8--"Never again would they be all-in-all to each other; the rift between them could never be healed. The wife had despoiled the mistress, and marriage seems to have done away with love." Explain in the essay what Zola means by those statements.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay of at least two typed, double-spaced pages on the topic of Claude Lantier's Reverence for Nude Women in Art. The three specific areas of the novel that deal with this topic should be the main points of your essay: (1) looking at Christine posing nude for the first time, Zola says that Claude's "heart pounded in his breast as it might have done in the presence of a naked saint." (2) Zola later tells the reader that Claude saw his nude woman in his paintings as a symbol for Paris. (3) Finally, Claude is unable to recapture the woman in his final painting and ultimately commits suicide for the love of her.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay of at least two typed, double-spaced pages on the topic of symbolism in painting. Note in your essay that the nude woman in Claude's paintings represented something in his mind that completely went over the heads of the public. Since classic painting and sculpture had represented the nude body for centuries, what was it about Claude's nude figures that caused the public to laugh at his work?

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