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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 Gin mean when she tells the narrator that she knows the dead woman?
2. What is the rhetorical purpose of the anaphora in the narrator's description of the Gold Coast residents having sex?
3. What is the rhetorical purpose of including the detail "the skinny rails of your legs" (235) when the narrator is talking about taking off Gin's bikini bottom?
4. What does Gin believe is true about the dead woman on the beach?
5. To what British author does the narrator ironically compare himself near the end of the story?
Short Essay Questions
1. What is the rhetorical effect of the diction used in the following description of the setting at Oak Street Beach: "The lake had turned hot pink, rose rapture, pearl amethyst with dusk, then washed in night black with a ruff of silver foam. Beyond a momentary horizon, silent bolts of heat lightning throbbed" (234)?
2. On page 233, the narrator describes the girlfriend's mother's car as having "a rosary twined [around] the rearview mirror like a beaded, black snake with silver, cruciform fangs." Describe the tone of this image and explain how it is related to the narrator's later description of unbuttoning his girlfriend's shirt.
3. What does Gin dream about the dead woman and her grandmother's cottage?
4. 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?
5. What is the rhetorical purpose of including the narrator's loss of the condom right before the drowned woman's body is discovered?
6. Explain the relationship of the story's title to the Amichai poem excerpt used as an epigraph.
7. What is the inclusion of details about the House of Dong intended to convey?
8. What scenario does Gin keep thinking about after the night on 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. 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?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim regarding the theme of "We Didn't." Support your ideas with evidence from the text.
Essay Topic 2
Write an essay in which you analyze the strategies that Dybek uses to build the tension that conveys the narrator's sexual desire. Comment on how the use of these strategies to build tension changes after the discovery of the body on the beach, and why. Use textual evidence to support your claims.
Essay Topic 3
Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about the symbolic uses of water in the story. Be sure to defend your ideas with evidence from the text.
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This section contains 1,366 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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