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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 Howie describe in great detail at the beginning of Chapter 2?

2. What did Howie's father hang on the doorknobs of their home?

3. What is inside Howie's CVS bag?

4. What does Howie describe in the first footnote in Chapter 2?

5. How many times could Howie wear a shirt to work before he had to get it cleaned?

Short Essay Questions

1. What point is Howie trying to make in his footnote about doorknobs?

2. What is awkward about Howie trying to sign the poster Tina has gotten for Ray the janitor?

3. How does Howie describe the experience of opening a package of shirts from the dry cleaners?

4. Why does Howie purchase a milk carton at Papa Gino's?

5. What does Howie believe to be the four reasons why it is good for brain cells to die?

6. What compelling realization does Howie remember when driving behind a garbage truck when he is thirty?

7. Why has Howie mostly given up drinking milk?

8. How does "The Mezzanine" begin?

9. How many of Howie's escalator memories come from his childhood?

10. How does Howie celebrate what he considers to be the realization that he is an adult?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the aesthetic distance created in the novel and the reader's experience of spending the entire time inside Howie's thoughts.

Essay Topic 2

What is the symbolic significance of both the shoelaces and how Howie resolves the mystery of the shoelace breakage?

Essay Topic 3

Compare Howie and Marcus Aurelius. What is the significance of Howie's fascination with Aurelius?

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