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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. Flying back to New York, Julius remembers having seen the city from a similar vantage point: when looking a vast scale model of the city. Where was that scale model exhibited?

2. What is the source of the dissonance in the organ music in Notre Dame?

3. How old was Julius when Moji said he forced himself on her?

4. Where does Julius find out most Africans in Brussels actually come from?

5. What does the clerk at the post office share with Julius in Chapter 16?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Julius’ relationship like with the character he never names, but simply calls “my friend” (179)?

2. What is the vision Julius has while he is sitting in the park, watching the starlings?

3. What is the leap in time and setting that has taken place between chapters 20 and 21?

4. Chapter 11 marks the end of “Part 1: Death is a perfection of the eye.” In what way is this title appropriate to the first 11 chapters?

5. What does the monument to the negro burial ground make Julius think about the reality of people in the past?

6. What does Julius say his relationship with winter is like?

7. How does Julius react to Dr. Saito’s death?

8. What was the last time before his fathers funeral that Julius says that he had seen a dead body?

9. How is Julius affected by V.’s death?

10. How does the model of New York from the 1964 World’s Fair serve as a metaphor for the book?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How are women represented in Open City? What roles do they play, and how does Julius and other men in the novel treat them? What does Julius’ and others’ treatment of women tell us about Teju Cole’s values as an author or about the fictional universe he has created?

Essay Topic 2

What is missing from this book? What should have been covered or presented that was not? What is the effect of this absence? Describe an element that ought to have been covered, and explain why it would have made the book stronger.

Essay Topic 3

Would you recommend Open City to a friend? What kind of friend would you recommend Open City to? What kind of friend would you not recommend this book to? What does this distinction tell you about the qualities of the novel itself? What does it tell you about your own critical values?

(see the answer keys)

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