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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. According to Sissie, what is the ethnicity of angels?

2. What sorts of professions do the volunteers become?

3. Where does SIssie think that Ghana is?

4. What does Marija have in her garden?

5. To where did Marija's West Indian neighbor and his wife move?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where does Big Adolph work?

2. What does the narrator claim that power decides?

3. What part of Africa does Sissie liken to the "bowels of the earth" (11)?

4. Why do the Bavarian women with whom Sissie works wear black?

5. What is the name of the African whom Sissie meets in Europe?

6. Where does Sissie recall meeting an Indian man?

7. How is God described in Part 2: "The Plums"?

8. What is the African name featured in Part 2: "The Plums?"

9. Which angel is described as the Black Devil?

10. What drink does Sissie encounter for the first time in Europe?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze how the stereotypical African family unit (especially the African mother) is portrayed within the novel. Of whose mother does the reader see glimpses in the narration? What are this woman's family's circumstances? Use evidence from the text to support your observations.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay in which you evaluate how various landscapes are portrayed in the novel. What sorts of landscapes are described? Where are they located, and how do they make Sissie feel? What are the differences between Sissie's home country and the landscapes she encounters in Europe? Use evidence from the text to support your evaluation of the differences.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay in which you evaluate the poetic interludes in the novel. What purpose do the poems serve? What is the effect on the reader when the poems break up the text? In your essay, you may conduct a close reading on any number of these poems as examples, and consider whether there are any common themes among these several poems, as well as what effect(s) they have on the reader.

(see the answer keys)

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