View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. To what does the narrator compare Gin's mother's rosary?
(a) A bolo tie.
(b) A noose.
(c) A belt.
(d) A snake.

2. Who is the author of "We Didn't"?
(a) Yehuda Amichai.
(b) Vincent Kowalski.
(c) Perry Katzek.
(d) Stuart Dybek.

3. When the police examine the woman's body in the light of their flashlights, what does her nakedness and obvious pregnancy cause them to do?
(a) Remove their hats and bow their heads.
(b) Tell the narrator and Gin to move back.
(c) Cross themselves and say a prayer.
(d) Look at Gin uncomfortably.

4. What is the description of the condom springing from the narrator's fingers "like a spring from a clock" (235) meant to convey?
(a) The pressure of time passing.
(b) The comical setting of their first attempt at sex.
(c) The complex nature of growing up.
(d) The narrator's general clumsiness.

5. In the story's opening, what details are related to the characters' social circumstances?
(a) Gin's bed and their parents' cars.
(b) The condition of the Rambler and the rosary.
(c) Light and darkness.
(d) Grass, leaves, and snow.

Short Answer Questions

1. On the fall night when the narrator realizes that his relationship with Gin is over, what are they arguing about?

2. What technique is used in the sentence "On my fingers your slick scent mixed with the coconut musk of the suntan lotion we’d repeatedly smeared over each other's bodies" (234) ?

3. What does the narrator speculate that the lightening across the water might be doing?

4. On page 243, there is a reference to "Casanova." Why is this historical figure mentioned?

5. From the context of page 234, what "apocalypse" is the allusion to the Four Horsemen referring to?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the rhetorical purpose of the narrator's comments about the "bloodless way in which a young man discards his own virginity" (235)?

2. What plot events--one immediate and one later--are foreshadowed by the narrator's description of "the bodies of lovers...visible in lightning flashes, scattered like the fallen on a battlefield" (234)?

3. What is foreshadowed by the page 233 description of their "lover's lane"?

4. What is the inclusion of details about the House of Dong intended to convey?

5. What messages about gender, sex, and adulthood are being conveyed in the phrase "entered you as if passing through a gateway into the rest of my life," which the narrator uses to describe his beliefs about what is happening on the beach that night?

6. In what sense does the narrator mean that, after the night on Oak Street Beach, the dead woman was always "with" him and Gin?

7. On the night in the lover's lane toward the end of the story, what does the narrator realize about his relationship with Gin?

8. What point about the relationship between men and women is made by the details the narrator observes on his train ride home after the night at Oak Street Beach?

9. How is the From Here to Eternity love scene evoked ironically when the narrator and Gin are on the beach?

10. When the narrator and Gin are on the beach, what does the narrator imagine the people along the Gold Coast doing, and what thematic ideas does his description convey?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,315 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample