View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What do Kasim and Fabiola go to eat in Chapter 9?

2. In "Matant Jo's Story," what had Phillip done after sending for the house?

3. How does Fabiola feel in Chapter 15?

4. In "Matant Jo's Story," what does Matant Jo tell Fabiola about the house?

5. How does Kasim talk about selling weed occasionally in Chapter 9?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who does Fabiola hear singing out the window in Chapter 2? What happens to him?

2. Who does Fabiola meet in Chapter 6? How does this person describe her cousins?

3. Where do Imani and Fabiola go in Chapter 12 and what do they do there? What worries Fabiola while she is there?

4. What had Fabiola and her mother done as Fabiola says in Chapter 7 to protect the family? When had they started doing this?

5. What does Chantal do in Chapter 6 when Mrs. Stanley asks for Fabiola's documents? How does Chantal describe her mother?

6. Who does Fabiola ask for help in the Detroit airport in Chapter 1? What is she told?

7. What does Majorie say in Majorie and Valerie's Story happened after the fall of the dictator? Why did they come to America?

8. What does the lady Fabiola meets in Chapter 6 ask her? What does Fabiola see as she drives away with her cousins?

9. What question does Fabiola ask Kasim that makes him angry in Chapter 11? Why does it?

10. In Chapter 13, what happens when Dray drives home? What does Fabiola think about Dray?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In Chapter Twenty Six where Fabiola says, "...I swallow and let them fill my body as if I've just eaten [Dray's] soul" (269). How does her decision to do this connect to what she says at the end of the novel, "We have to become everything we want. Consume it. Like our lwas" (320)? How does Fabiola, metaphorically or literally, become Dray, or Baron Samedi? What in her actions come to mirror Dray's actions in becoming him? Write what this says about the morality of how she and Dray both act.

Essay Topic 2

In Chapter Twenty One, Fabiola dreams of the history of 8800 American Street, and then in the next chapter the detailed history of 8800 American Street is revealed. What does this structure say about how Fabiola learns the stories revealed in the novel? Are they actually being spoken to her or does she learn them in other ways? If she learns them in other ways, what are these ways of knowing? Choose three of the backstories to develop an argument about how she knows these.

Finally, what is the novel saying by having these stories revealed in this way? What is Fabiola's role related to the other characters of the novel and to the reader?

Essay Topic 3

Fabiola's determination to intercede in her mother's detention, and Dray's relationship with Donna, leads to her mother coming home, but Kasim dead. Does Fabiola need to interfere like she chooses to do? What are the consequences of her interference? Why does she not wait as she is told to by her aunt and cousins?

Make this a twofold paper where you say what you think about her decision and also what the novel is saying: is it saying you must interfere to change fate, or you must sit back?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 921 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample