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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 does Julius say he was sent to the Nigerian Military School to get?

2. What position is Farouq determined to advocate in his work?

3. What does Julius say was the true source of second-class warrant officer Musibau’s anger at him?

4. What is the “halo” Julius sees around Dr. Saito’s head comprised of (11)?

5. What is Dr. Maillotte reading on the flight with Julius?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the feeling Julius wakes up from his dream with, in the beginning of Chapter 10, in his first days in Brussels?

2. What kind of person does Julius show himself to be in the taxi he gets home from American Folk Art Museum?

3. What kind of trip does Julius make to Brussels?

4. What are Julius’ thoughts on the weather and global warming?

5. What does Julius say his relationship with his mother is like?

6. What made the detained immigrant Saidu leave Liberia?

7. What does Nadège’s limp make Julius think about, and what does it make him see about Nadège?

8. What is the style of the opening pages of Open City, and what kind of expectation do they set up in the reader?

9. What is the scene Julius remembers from Dr. Gupta’s house, while he is watching The Last King of Scotland?

10. Who does Julius imagine he sees, as he enters Brussels?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Evaluate your own reading of Open City—did you resist it, or were you compelled by the story? What does your reading tell you about yourself and your interests? Use specific examples from the book to describe yourself as a reader.

Essay Topic 2

Identify the most important plot points in Open City. What is at stake in each of these moments? What possibilities do these moments present, and how are those possibilities channeled into specific actions or events? How does the plot chart its course among other alternative or possible plots?

Essay Topic 3

The biographical information says that Teju Cole is a “writer, photographer and professional historian of early Netherlandish art” (263). How do these other disciplines affect this novel? What does this book have in common with photography? What kind of photography in particular? What does this book have in common with Dutch art, or the discipline of art history?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,199 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample