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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 Esme always hold against Wilma from what happens with Carson in Chapter 11?

2. What does Wilma call Lala?

3. Why does Wilma make Esme sleep in the outhouse?

4. What happens to Esme in Chapter 11 that becomes a terrible family secret?

5. What kind of woman was Wilma in 1963?

Short Essay Questions

1. Whose fault does Adan tell Lala he thinks Peter Whalen's murder is?

2. What has Mira Whalen's mother always advocated?

3. What lie does Lala tell about where Adan was when Baby "disappeared"?

4. What interrupts the robber in Mira's house in Part I?

5. What problems does Sam have following Peter's death?

6. Why does Wilma tell Lala the story of the one-armed sister?

7. How does the one-armed sister lose her arm?

8. What does Mira Whalen sometimes feel she is being punished for?

9. Why does Wilma send her own daughter Esme away from the house when Esme is a young girl?

10. How does the hospital staff treat Lala when she has her baby there?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay analyzing the tone and language Jones uses to describe the physical and emotional abuse Lala suffers at the hands of her husband Adan throughout the novel.

Essay Topic 2

What connections does Jones draw between Mira Whalen's upbringing as the illegitimate mixed-race child of a Black businessman in Barbados and her later marriage to Peter Whalen and her adult life in general? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 3

How does Jones describe Lala's relationship with her grandmother Wilma, and what are some of the foundational sources of tension within this relationship? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

(see the answer keys)

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