1. Blood gets up on his second day in Chicago and immediately gets high before going out for the night in Chapter 7. How does this sequence of events foreshadow a potential for backfire in Blood's plan to befriend Glass Top to get to Sweet Jones?

2. What are two ways in which the Melody incident is haunting for Blood in Chapter 7?

3. How does the incident with Melody provide a metaphor for Blood's relationship with and attitude towards the white world?

4. Why does Bobby/Slim say that from a pimp's perspective, looking back, Steve was an idiot and played the game with Mama all wrong?

5. Besides giving him his first street name, how does Weeping Shorty influence Blood's career as a pimp?

6. In Chapter 4, what might be described as the final exam for graduation to full pimp status for Blood?

7. Many characters come and go in the story without being given names, even if they play a reasonably memorable role for the author (like the banker with the big tip in Chapter 1). However, in Chapter 9, Silas plays a singularly minor role and yet is given a name and place in the story. What significance could be attributed to this?

8. How does the IQ test Blood receives from his parole officer change his life in Chapter 3?

9. How does the Chapter 9 title "Butterfly" refer to Chris?

10. How does it speak to Blood's salesmanship that he is able to score Runt as his own working girl after such a short period of time?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Chapter 21, it is the news of Party Time's demise that finally provides the impetus for Slim to pull his life together and vow to quit drugs and pimping forever. What about this loss of his first street buddy, his first con partner, causes Slim to question every life decision he has made?

Essay Topic 2

Oscar, the inmate Bobby meets in State Reformatory School, is institutionalized after spending too much time in solitary confinement. After Slim (or Bobby, as he was then) witnesses Oscar's decline into madness and suicide, he internalizes this lesson and remembers it during his own stretch in solitary later on. It is integral to his desire to comply with the warden's demands to know the details of his escape. Solitary confinement is still utilized in certain circumstances in the American prison system (and many other prison systems around the world). The UN categorizes some uses of solitary confinement as torture or inhumane treatment. Why are humans so heavily impacted psychologically by solitary confinement? How can the experience of solitary confinement change depending upon the personality of the person incarcerated? In Slim's case, months in solitary confinement ultimately give the warden what he wants. Is solitary confinement an acceptable method for getting truth (or other desired behaviors) from someone? Is solitary confinement a necessary evil of the prison system or an inhumane exercise in cruelty against people who have no way of defending themselves?

Essay Topic 3

Nature versus Nurture. Bobby Beck's choices as Macking Youngblood and Iceberg Slim can be described as a result of an unfortunate and violent childhood, bad environment and bad parenting/role modeling. Instead of following the example of Henry Upshaw, a man he loved and wanted to be like, Beck chose to follow the example of Steve and the pimps of the Chicago underworld. Is Beck's path in life inevitable given his resentment of women, his violent handling by his father and his available options as a black man in a white, segregated world? Identify key choice points for Beck at various points in his life and his perceived alternatives.

(see the answer keys)

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