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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. How does the narrator feel about eating?

2. How does the narrator feel about what John Young does for a living?

3. Which war does Tod Friendly protest?

4. What kind of sense of humor does the narrator believe John Young has?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the narrator experience Tod's relationship with food?

2. Describe John Young/Hamilton de Souza/Odilo Unverdorben's feelings about fleeing to America after the war.

3. How does the narrator understand language?

4. How does the narrator experience Tod's kindness to children?

5. What is the key to substance for the narrator?

6. What do Tod Friendly/John Young/Hamilton de Souza/Odilo Unverdorben's name changes tell us about his character?

7. What are some of the terms the narrator coins in order to make things make sense?

8. Is there any place where the narrator's understanding is more accurate than Tod Friendly's?

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

10. How does Tod feel about his physical body in the first chapter?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does the narrator's attempt to make sense of Odilo Unverdorben's life parallel our attempts to make sense of the Holocaust? Do we live the Holocaust backwards the way he does? Does his emotional experience of the Holocaust coincide with ours? Are we just as emotionally detached? Give examples from the book as well as from your studies of the Holocaust

Essay Topic 2

The narrator feels an almost religious awe at Uncle Pepi's power to create people.

1. Who else seems to have this power, and how do they use it? What are the effects of this power?

2. Are there any instances where characters resist this sense of awe with reason or pragmatism or some other form of understanding that protects them?

3. Is respect for that power a historical fact that was only exhibited in the Holocaust and select other historical instances? Or is respect for that power a stage of development, which has to be followed by regret and acts of contrition? Cite specific examples from the text in your answer.

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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