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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 object does Maria keep in her makeup box that she is careful not to examine?

2. In the hospital, what does Maria try NOT to think about?

3. According to BZ, what does Larry Kulik have to do to be able to sleep with the young girl at Anita Garson's?

4. Who gives BZ and Helene money to stay married?

5. What does Maria throw out in order to insure bleeding?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the only time in Maria's day where she does not think about the past nor is overcome with dread?

2. What is the coral snake Maria thinks about as the novel opens a metaphor of?

3. When Maria tells Carter that she is pregnant and that he may not be the father, how does he respond and why is it significant?

4. How does Maria's mother die and why is it significant?

5. How do Larry Kulik and BZ behave around the girl in the white halter dress at a party Maria attends and why is it significant?

6. What memory does Carter have of Maria and the baby and what does it reveal about Maria?

7. Where does Maria begin to sleep after her breakup with Carter and why is it significant?

8. What does Maria do the first month after she and Carter break up and what does it signify?

9. When Maria thinks of the men that she has been intimate in her life, what conclusion does she come to and how is it important to the novel?

10. When Maria asks if Carter and she are separated when he returns home, how does he respond and why is it significant?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the importance of rituals in the novel.

1. What rituals does Maria enact and why?

2. What is the relationship between ritual and superstition?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the role of class in the novel.

1. What is the impact of class mobility on the characters?

2. How are differences in class represented?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the portrayal of marriage in the novel.

Compare and contrast Maria and Carter's marriage with BZ and Helene's marriage. What are their similarities and differences?

(see the answer keys)

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