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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. Where does the radio pick up a broadcast from?

2. Who said, "Now we will never be mistaken for Cubans?"

3. Which of these does not appear in the male narrator's dream?

4. What does the first narrator say the sea smells like?

5. What is the gender of the first narrator?

Short Essay Questions

1. Think about the male narrator's references to skin color. How does this reflect the social prejudices prevalent in the story?

2. Describe the male narrators life before he fled Haiti. What did the male narrator do?

3. What happens after the female narrator thanks her father? What is significant about this?

4. Describe the old man on the boat.

5. What phrase do both the narrators use to describe their love for one another? How is this significant?

6. Describe the last time the male narrator saw his mother.

7. What concern does the female narrator's father express for the male narrator? How is this significant?

8. Why does the female narrator's father stay at his brother's house? What character embodies this fear?

9. What bird do both of the narrators mention? In what way do each of them refer to it?

10. What does the female narrator tell her father at the dinner table? Why does she do this? What is his reaction?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Think about the female narrator's relationship with her mother. What parallels do we see in both their lives? How does her mother try and repair the relationship between the narrator and her father? Is she successful?

Essay Topic 2

"I go to them now as though it was always meant to be, as though the very day that my mother birthed me, she had chosen me to live life eternal, among the children of the deep blue sea, those who have escaped the chains of slavery to form a world beneath the heavens and the blood-drenched earth where you live."

Consider the quote above. Explain its significance in the story. Pay special attention to syntax, tone, diction, imagery and meaning.

Essay Topic 3

Think about all the gruesome descriptions the female narrator offers. What tone does she take when describing? What does this tell us about the narrator? About Haitians?

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