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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 PaPaLaBas say men will turn to before the end of the century?

2. What are Berbelang and the others wearing when they come for Biff Musclewhite?

3. Why does Earline say Berbelang left the Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral?

4. What does Hinkle Von Vampton tell Major Young is the purpose of the ‘Benign Monster’?

5. What would happen if the guarded ‘booty’ got into the ‘wrong hands’?

Short Essay Questions

1. What affliction is PaPaLaBas trying to relieve the blacks of in North America?

2. Describe Buddy Jackson’s cabaret.

3. What problem is Hinkle Von Vampton having, in recruiting blacks for the Benign Monster?

4. What is the Mu’tafikah’s plan?

5. What kind of people did Langston Hughes say were popular in the 1920s in the Harlem Renaissance?

6. How does Reed characterize America in Mumbo Jumbo?

7. Describe the cover of the first issue of the Benign Monster.

8. What is Warren G. Harding’s role in Mumbo Jumbo?

9. How does Woodrow Wilson Jefferson end up being hired by the Benign Monster?

10. What predicament does Charlotte find herself in with regard to Biff Musclewhite?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Identify the most important plot points in Mumbo Jumbo. What is at stake in each of these moments? What possibilities do these moments present, and how are those possibilities channeled into specific actions or events? How does the plot chart its course among other alternative or possible plots?

Essay Topic 2

Evaluate your own reading of Mumbo Jumbo—did you resist it, or were you compelled by the story? What does your reading tell you about yourself and your interests? Use specific examples from the book to describe yourself as a reader.

Essay Topic 3

One of the epigrams to Mumbo Jumbo, from James Weldon Johnson, says that “the words of the Jes Grew songs “were unprintable, but the tune was irresistible, and belonged to nobody.” (p. 7). Who are the various different parties to whom the Jes Grew songs belong? Who embodies them, who participates them, and who renounces them? What makes the Jes Grew claim certain people and not others?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 971 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample