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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 Bride remember as the most important part of her testimony against Sylvia Huxley?

2. What is a quadroon?

3. How much money does Sweetness’ husband send her monthly, after he leaves?

4. What does Brooklyn say Bride does not know about her ex-boyfriend Booker?

5. How does Sweetness say she intends to hold onto her dignity?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Sweetness say she treated Bride the way she did?

2. What is the relationship between Bride’s memory of her landlord and her memory of Sylvia Huxley?

3. What effect does Bride’s testimony have on her relationship with her mother?

4. What sensation does Booker’s shaving brush give Bride?

5. In a number of places, Bride says that she feels ‘erased.’ What is the importance of this feeling, in God Help the Child?

6. How is Bride’s mother different after the courtroom than she usually is, in her treatment of Bride?

7. How does Sylvia Huxley react to Bride’s visit?

8. What kind of gesture does Bride make to Sylvia Huxley, and why does it go so wrong?

9. While Bride is recovering from her hangover, what scene does she remember seeing from her childhood?

10. What caused Julie to try to kill herself?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Who is the audience for God Help the Child? What is the ideal reader for God Help the Child likely to think about the book’s main topics? How does this book try to affect the reader? What is it trying to teach him or her, or get him or her to do?

Essay Topic 2

Write a character sketch of the author based on her style and content. What values does she hold dear? What are her hopes and fears? What kind of person do you think she is? Anchor your sketch in passages in the book.

Essay Topic 3

Evaluate the ending God Help the Child. Does it ring true to you? Does it successfully resolve the problems and tensions that preceded it? What would you change, if anything? What are you left wishing for closure on, if anything?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 954 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample