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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 Christine not want to discuss with Claude?

2. Rejected for the Prix de Rome, what is Fagerolles now painting?

3. What do Claude and Christine visit after they find an old boat?

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

5. What famous artist joins the group at Pierre's house?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is the neglect of Jacques symbolized?

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

3. Describe the attraction Jory has developed for Mathilde.

4. Why does Christine turn to Sandoz to help pull Claude out of one of his depressions?

5. Describe the mood at the beginning of the novel.

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

7. What is the showdown between Christine and the nude woman in Claude's painting?

8. What is the occasion when Claude first goes to the Salon to look for his painting?

9. What is another evidence of how the Open air group is drifting apart?

10. How does Zola show the domestic side of Christine?

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 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?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

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.

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