View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What minister does Equiano hear preach in Philadelphia?

2. What new profession does Equiano learn in England?

3. What does King give Equiano when Equiano is leaving for England in Chapter 9?

4. When Farmer and his first mate are both ill, who steers the ship into port?

5. Why does Equiano not go to England immediately after receiving his freedom?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Equiano's trip to New York and Philadelphia in 1784.

2. How does his experience of being "born again" change Equiano's attitude toward life?

3. Is Equiano's encounter with Pascal when he returns to England the way you expected it to be?

4. Why does Equiano decide to leave Dr. Irving's plantation?

5. Why does Equiano want to become ordained?

6. Why do you think Equiano goes back and forth so much between going to sea and other ways of making a living, like hairdressing?

7. What three elements of Equiano's visit with the fisherman help him decide to become a Christian?

8. How does the episode with the silversmith parallel earlier events in The Interesting Narrative?

9. Why does the episode with John Annis affect Equiano's quest for a religion?

10. Compare Phillips to Farmer.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the role of Miss Guerins in the book, including both (a) her role in Equiano's life and (b) the effect of the presence of this figure in the book on the white eighteenth-century reader.

Essay Topic 2

Since The Interesting Narrative follows Equiano from childhood to adulthood, it is a story of a boy growing up as well as of a man seeking freedom and a spiritual home. How is Equiano's transition from childhood to adulthood affected by the fact that he is taken into slavery as an adolescent boy? How does the book show readers that transition?

Essay Topic 3

Equiano's narrative includes many different kinds of travel, from his forced travel as a slave to travel for commercial purposes to exploratory travel. Compare the different kinds of travel Equiano describes, making sure to cover all the categories of travel you identify and to use examples from as many different voyages in the book as possible.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,039 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample