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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 the narrator think Odilo Unverdorben's mother will do when Odilo returns into her body?
2. What does the narrator look forward to in Odilo Unverdorben's work at Auschwitz?
3. What does the narrator believe happens to people after they are "created' at Auschwitz?
4. What is Odilo Unverdorben's reasoning for visiting prostitutes?
5. How successful does the narrator think Uncle Pepi's experiments are?
Short Essay Questions
1. How is the narrator right about Odilo Unverdorben's personality as a young man?
2. What is the importance of Odilo Unverdorben's childhood home?
3. Describe the similarities and differences between Odilo Unverdorben and Uncle Pepi.
4. The narrator is usually just stuck with his backward perspective. Describe a case where he creates his own explanations and has to explain things to himself.
5. What does the narrator think about Auschwitz when he sees it through Odilo Unverdorben's thirteen-year-old eyes?
6. How does Odilo Unverdorben's relationship with Herta change when he arrives at Schless-Hartheim?
7. Describe the narrator's relationship with Odilo Unverdorben in the years before/after Odilo began to work in the camps.
8. Name four methods Odilo Unverdorben sees the Germans use to "process" the Jews?
9. How does the narrator's impression of the killings at Schless-Hartheim increase the reader's sense of sympathy for the people the Nazis killed there?
10. Describe Odilo Unverdorben's relationship with his father.
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
The motto at Schless-Hertheim is "There is such a thing as life that is not worthy of life." Is this motto reinforced by the events that take place after the war? Is it undermined?
1. Cite specific instances from the text where characters support or contradict this motto.
2. Are characters conflicted within themselves about this idea? How do they resolve this internal conflict?
Essay Topic 2
The Holocaust is almost impossible to represent in literature or film. Does this book succeed in giving you a sense of the horror and wrongness of what took place during the war? Where is the book most believable and effective? Where does it stir the reader's sympathies and feelings? Where does it leave the reader detached and unfeeling, apart from the action? Does the book deliberately try to overcome the reader's aversion to difficult material? Is the backwardness of the narration an effective method for getting the reader to read about something hard to bear? What other techniques does the author use for conveying difficult or painful information? Cite specific examples from the text in your answer.
Essay Topic 3
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
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This section contains 964 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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