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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. Who is the cult's victim in Hawa Mandir?

2. In Chapter 11, what Indian town is Owen living in?

3. What does James think of in Chapter 11 as he deals with the passed out Hardeman?

4. At the beginning of Chapter 12, what does Owen mistake James for?

5. In Chapter 9, what medium does Volterra say would be best for telling the cult's story?

Short Essay Questions

1. According to Rowser in Chapter 11, what changes are happening in the Northeast Group.

2. What point about the murders does Andahl make in Chapter 9?

3. What information does Andahl give about the cult in Chapter 9?

4. How does Owen experience the murder in Chapter 12?

5. What suspicions does James have about Eliades in Chapter 13?

6. How is Chapter 14 connected thematically to the rest of the novel?

7. How has Rowser become more paranoid in Chapter 11?

8. In Chapter 12, why does Owen go to Lake Rajsamand?

9. What transpires during James' evening with Del Nearing in Chapter 10?

10. How did Del Nearing and Frank Volterra meet?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The action of Don DeLillo's The Names largely centers on a group of westerners' search for the language cult that stalks Eurasia. Each of these men has a reason for seeking this death-cult, and each has tactics that yield varying success. Write an essay about the individual quests for the cult in the novel:

Part 1) Why does Frank Volterra want to find the death cult in The Names, and what is his intention when he does find them? Discuss how Volterra initially hears about the cult, and what tactic he uses to find them. What success does this yield? Why does the director give up?

Part 2) Why does James Axton want to find the cult? Discuss what other events in his life coincide with this dangerous quest. What does James discover about the cult, and how? How is his sense of sanity affected by this? What new fears and obsessions does the search evoke?

Part 3) Why does Owen Brademas want to find the death cult? How does his childhood relate to his goals in the quest? Discuss what tactics and skills make Owen Brademas the most successful of the searchers in the novel. Why, in the end, does Owen consider his search a failure?

Essay Topic 2

In The Names, Don DeLillo has created a central mystery - the mystery of the cult - in which clues and revelations are annoyingly amorphous and cannot necessarily be trusted. Write an essay about the subjectivity of truth in the novel, focusing on three pieces of information that James Axton gleans in his investigation. Where does this information come from? What is James's attitude towards it? Does he think that it is ultimately trustworthy?

Essay Topic 3

The world of The Names is one in which truth and facts are subjective. One can never be certain what is real and what is imagined. As such, there are a plethora of ambiguous characters in the novel. Write an essay about three such characters, discussing what they appear to be and what they are. How is the narrative affected by each of these characters? What deceptions do they perpetrate, and to what end? Is each characters' objectives identified by the end of the novel?

Part 1) Eliades

Part 2) Rowser

Part 3) Andahl

(see the answer keys)

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