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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 happens to the plantation thirteen years after Golden Gray meets his father?

2. Why does Dorcas often sneak over to Felice's house?

3. Who ends up calling an ambulance for Dorcas?

4. Why does Dorcas think she is falling at the party?

5. What does Violet Felice carry as she climbs the stairs?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe what Golden Gray sees in the forest as he approaches his father's cabin in Chapter Six.

2. How does the narrator describe Acton?

3. Describe the way Dorcas is feeling at the party in the beginning of Chapter Eight.

4. In Chapter 10, why do Joe and Violet often go to the roof? What do they do up there together?

5. Describe the initial meeting between Golden Gray and his father in Chapter Seven.

6. Describe what Joe and Violet do together at night in Chapter 10.

7. Describe the birthing scene of the naked black girl in Chapter Seven.

8. What is your understanding of the relationship between Joe, Violet, and Felice in Chapters Nine and Ten?

9. Describe what Violet sees when she first spots Felice in Chapter Nine.

10. In Chapter 10, why does Alice Manfred move back to Springfield? What do you think is the real reason she moves back to Springfield?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Why does Violet decide she never wants to have children? What impact does this have on her marriage? How does her desire to have children change throughout the book and why?

Essay Topic 3

Felice has a strong attachment to the ring Dorcas is buried wearing. What does the ring signify, and why is it so important to Felice? What greater concepts are initiated in the story about the ring?

(see the answer keys)

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