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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. Where were Ayah, Chato and their family living when the government car pulled up outside their home?

2. How did the blond woman behave while Ayah's children were visiting?

3. Why is Ayah surprised when she reaches the wooden steps of the bar?

4. What metaphor does Silko use to compare the snowflakes to as they enter the bar?

5. Why does Ayah take care of Chato?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the purpose of the personification of the "freezing" at the end of the story?

2. What is the irony of Ayah having to search for Chato in the present when she spent so many years distancing herself from him?

3. Why does Ayah hate the information that Chato told her it was the old woman who died in the winter that gave the children a disease?

4. Although Ayah doesn't cry at first, she "hurts inside with anger". What does this mean and how does it fuel her anger toward the white man?

5. What does Jimmie's true Navajo name being reduced to something as common as "Jimmie" in English say about the white man?

6. What was the purpose of Ayah sleeping in the hills after the children are taken?

7. Why was the blonde woman afraid of when she brought Ella and Danny back to visit Ayah?

8. What did Ayah feel when she enters Azzie's Bar in search of Chato?

9. What does Silko mean when she says that Ayah's life becomes memories?

10. Why did Ayah believe Chato is a stranger?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

At the end of the story, Ayah sings a lullaby to Chato as he peacefully dies in his sleep during the bitter cold. How is the act representative of Ayah finding peace? In what ways does it support the Navajos' belief in the circle of life? What is the importance of song in Lullaby? How does the importance of oral tradition play into song and its usage in Lullaby? Use fact details from the text to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

How do the hills and landscape comfort Ayah when she attempts to escape with the Danny and Ella to the mesa? After they are taken, it is this place Ayah stays. Why? What do the parts of the landscape mean to her? How do they remind her of her children? Use the text to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

At the onset of the novel, Ayah is wrapped in Jimmie's old army blanket. Describe what all this is a metaphor for, using specific examples from the text.

(see the answer keys)

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