View a FREE sample

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 Matigari when he tries to enter the scrapyard in Part I?

2. What is the mugumo?

3. What is the main topic of conversation at the bar when Matigari enters with Mũriũki?

4. What does Gũthera ask when Matigari tells her that Settler Williams is dead?

5. Why did the people at Gũthera's church refuse to help her when she needed money to care for her siblings?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Matigari tell Mũriũki he was doing in the woods and why?

2. What does Matigari think as he sees Black Africans driving cars at the start of the story?

3. Describe the scrapyard that the man follows the boys to after watching them dig through garbage.

4. What happens to Matigari when he does not heed the boy's warning not to enter the scrapyard?

5. What does Mũriũki tell Matigari happened to his mother as they sit at the Mataha hotel?

6. Describe the conversation between Matigari and Gũthera after she offers him "a little pleasure" (24).

7. What do the other women think about Gũthera's refusal to take money from a cop? What does Gũthera say about money from a cop?

8. What happens to Gũthera after she leaves the bar? How does Matigari save her?

9. What does Matigari do at the mugumo tree at the start of the novel?

10. Why is Matigari excited when John Boy Junior says his father sent him to school?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose a character and discuss their role in creating conflict in the story.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Ngũgĩ’s focus on the theme of colonialism in Matigari.

Essay Topic 3

Away from the main character examine the way the author uses the other characters in the story. When does he introduce and take them away from the story? What effect does it have on the story?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 759 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample