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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. In Section 3, what has Maureen noticed about items in the village?

2. What does July’s mother eventually do as she carries wood in Section 5?

3. How much time has passed since Maureen and Bam left Johannesburg?

4. Why does July’s family have difficulty understanding why the Smalls wouldn't just fly overseas?

5. What has Maureen learned to make appropriately by Section 4?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Maureen realize now about how she treated July, and her assumption that he has taken the keys as one friend takes them from another?

2. Describe the photograph of young Maureen and her housekeeper Lydia, and why it is important.

3. What is July’s plan to tell people, when they question his driving of the bakke, and why does Bam object?

4. How does Maureen get the car keys in Section 4, why, and what is July’s reaction?

5. What do Maureen and Bam argue about in Section 3?

6. What does Martha mean in Section 2 when she says she was surprised at the way Maureen looked?

7. Where does July explain he has been with the car in Section 4, and what is Bam’s concern?

8. Describe the bakke, and its use in the Smalls family, both previously and currently.

9. Describe what Bam and July are able to make for the village.

10. What happened to the blacks under the Small’s employ, including July?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast July’s character at the beginning of the novel with his behaviors at the end of the novel. How did July change over the course of the novel, and why? What are his true feelings for Maureen? For Bam? Why did he hate his true resentment for so long? Why is his resentment so deep? Could Maureen have avoided his fury?

Essay Topic 2

July plays up his power role in his home community, telling the Smalls he is listened to in his village and that he is powerful. However, Maureen accuses him of attempting to use them, and their belongings, to further his power. Why would July need the Smalls, or their things, to improve standing in his community, and what does this imply about July as a person?

Essay Topic 3

The gun is a symbolic object in the novel. What does it symbolize to Bam and Maureen? To the villagers? To July? To Daniel? To the chief? In the end what happens to it, and how does this affect Bam? How does it affect Maureen?

(see the answer keys)

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