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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 'medication' does Maureen get from Martha in Section 4?

2. What do July’s daughters seem amazed at regarding July's situation in the city?

3. What does Maureen become aware of in Section 2 that she is ignorant of in this village?

4. What does Maureen send Royce to tell July in Section 5?

5. What does Maureen understand about the question she asks July in Section 5 that puts him ill at ease?

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 situation with the vehicle in Section 3.

3. What does the author mean by “a contempt and humiliation that came from their blood and his” (pg 62)?

4. What was the relationship between July’s “town woman” and July? What was the relationship between July's town woman and Maureen?

5. What does Victor’s anger at the “stealing” of “their” water show?

6. Why does July object to Maureen’s use of his wife’s cough syrup?

7. In Section 2, what does July try to explain to his family about the Smalls?

8. Explain Maureen’s reaction to meeting Martha and July’s mother in Section 2.

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Although Maureen and Bam claim to be against the life of privileged whites, their children’s behaviors betray this concept. Choose one scene in which the behavior of the children leads one to believe they are, indeed, over privileged, and that they don’t share their parents’ views of equality for blacks.

Essay Topic 2

The children in the novel regress throughout the book, and by the end, they are having difficulty even reading. Describe at least three moments in the book where one of the children “loses” their privileged behaviors and instead substitutes behaviors they are learning from the village children. What does this indicate about their ability to adapt, as opposed to their parents’ ability?

Essay Topic 3

Maureen at one point in the novel mentions being afraid of July, not in a physical sense, but in the sense that she realizes her “consideration” for him became “humiliation” to him. What does this mean? How did Maureen’s treatment of him humiliate him now that they are in his world? What does this say about the whole of Maureen’s life previously? Why does this frighten her?

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