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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. How long was it before Mike met up with Robby and Cecil?

2. How had John changed Robby's voice in the first draft?

3. What does Robby say people in the ghetto valued?

4. What does Robby say he found when his girlfriend woke him up after buying heroin?

5. What is different about the trip John makes to the prison in 'Doing Time II'?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Robby say about his educate in his speech?

2. Describe Robby's travels after the robbery?

3. How does Robby say the prison environment changes after his appeals are all turned down?

4. How does John characterize his revision to Robby's story.

5. What do Robby and his crew do after the robbery?

6. What did Robby and Michael Dukes and Cecil Rice do sloppily while they were getting away?

7. How is John's 1982 visit unusual?

8. What pact did the robbers make, and how did it get broken?

9. How does Robby characterize his career in fencing operations?

10. What does Robby say was his impulse after the robbery?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast John and Robby. How are they similar? How are they different? In what way are they one man? In what way are they two very different men?

Essay Topic 2

How does John characterize his brother? What literary techniques does he use to bring his brother to life as a literary character? How does his characterization change throughout the course of the memoir, as he writes one draft and then another? What does John learn about himself and his brother in the process of trying to capture this story in writing?

Essay Topic 3

According to John Wideman, Robby is locked up like an animal. What other metaphors are common to "Brothers and Keepers", and what does the web of metaphorical associations tell us about Wideman and his ideas about Robby's incarceration? Does he treat the idea playfully? Is he deadly serious about it? Does he try to magnify the significance of it through metaphor? Does he try to diminish it or domesticate it?

(see the answer keys)

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