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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 are the Civic Daughters planning when Joe delivers the cosmetics?

2. How does Violet meet Joe?

3. Who understands, like Joe, what it feels like to feel nothing inside?

4. Where does Violet's father travel to look for work?

5. How does the white men refer to the best hunter?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Joe's recollection of the train ride to Maryland in Chapter Two.

2. What is the significance of Dorcas's clothespin dolls in Chapter Three?

3. Describe the death of Dorcas's mother.

4. Describe the different things Joe and Violet see in the picture of Dorcas.

5. Briefly describe the nature of Joe and Dorcas's relationship as described in Chapter Two.

6. How does the narrator describe Harlem of the 1920s in Chapter One?

7. In Chapter Four, how does Violet imagine Joe's relationship with Dorcas?

8. Describe how Dorcas's mother dies.

9. What is the story the narrator gives behind Joe's last name?

10. In Chapter Four, why does True Belle come to Virginia to care for her grandchildren?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How is racism explored and conveyed in Morrison's work? Why do you think Morrison writes about it in this way?

Essay Topic 2

How do the stories of Dorcas's death differ as they are told by Joe, Dorcas, and Felice? What aspects are the same? How do the differences in perception accentuate the difference between these three characters?

Essay Topic 3

Describe the relationship between True Belle and Vera Louise Gray. Do the events they share bring them together or pull them apart? How does each of their relationships with Golden Gray compare to the other?

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