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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 color is the hospital, regardless of the season?

2. How does the narrator feel about doctors?

3. How does the narrator believe people are treated at crisis centers?

4. Whom does John Young date?

5. How does Hamilton de Souza pay the old Spanish man?

Short Essay Questions

1. When is Tod Friendly/John Young happy?

2. What condition is Europe in when Odilo Unverdorben leaves?

3. Describe John Young's departure from Europe.

4. How does the narrator feel about the change from America to Europe?

5. What does the narrator understand about sex?

6. What does the narrator think about Tod Friendly's dreams and memories?

7. Does Tod Friendly/John Young seem to be a good person?

8. How does the narrator understand language?

9. Can the reader sympathize with the narrator's sense of horror at John Young's work?

10. Describe how the narrator feels about Tod Friendly's work?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Babies are a recurring image in Time's Arrow. Cite three instances where babies appear and describe their significance in the context where they occur; then describe their symbolic significance. What qualities do they represent in Odilo's life? In the narrator's? In the other characters?

Essay Topic 2

Men and women have different perspectives on the events of this book.

1. How do men's and women's perspectives differ? How are they similar? How would you characterize men's perspectives, and how would you characterize women's? Do individuals have both male and female characteristics?

2. Where do men's and women's perspectives and values come into conflict? Whose values or whose power wins those conflicts?

Essay Topic 3

The narrator and Odilo Unverdorben are both characters in the author's narration. Does the author ever indicate his support of one or the other? Whose side does the author seem to be on? Cite specific instances from the text where the narration or the irony give you insight into the author's own point of view. How would you characterize the author's beliefs or feelings? How does the author's perspective differ from the narrator's or Odilo's?

(see the answer keys)

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