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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. Why is Hinkle Von Vampton fired?

2. What does the Robber Baron examine in Chapter 9?

3. What caused New Jersey youths to be fired from their job?

4. What metaphor does Ishmael Reed use for the Mu’tafikah’s seizure of artifacts?

5. What is the only cure for the Jes Grew?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Berbelang say is the guilt Faust carries with him?

2. Describe Buddy Jackson’s cabaret.

3. Why does Woodrow Wilson Jefferson leave for New York?

4. What is Warren G. Harding’s role in Mumbo Jumbo?

5. What is Mumbo Jumbo’s relationship with history?

6. What does the Jes Grew want?

7. What is the meaning when Safecracker Gould says that “the dances were difficult to write down” (p. 103)?

8. Describe Nathan Brown’s status in the black arts scene.

9. Under what conditions does Hinkle Von Vampton agree to stamp out the Jes Grew?

10. How does Charlotte’s predicament get resolved?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Would you recommend Mumbo Jumbo? For what purposes would you recommend Mumbo Jumbo, and what kinds of readers would you recommend it for? What other book would you recommend that would cover the same material or tell the same story in a different way?

Essay Topic 2

Mumbo Jumbo presents a number of different African and African-American arts—minstrel shows, jazz, a cabaret, in addition to poetry and religious fetishes. Which art is most emblematic of the art of Mumbo Jumbo itself? Why?

Essay Topic 3

What would it mean to ‘write down the dance,’ in Mumbo Jumbo? What efforts are made, to record the gestures of the Jes Grew, and why does dancing elude and representation? How does Ishmael Reed address the irony of writing a novel about a dance that cannot be recorded?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 869 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample