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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 is ironic about Sidi saying that Sadiku has a "honey tongue" (20)?

2. To whom does Sadiku pray on Sidi's behalf?

3. Why does Sidi not want to spend any time alone with Baroka?

4. What is happening onstage while Lakunle tells the story of Baroka's corruption?

5. What is Sadiku's response to Sidi's refusal of Baroka's proposal?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Baroka's bedroom.

2. When the scene in "Noon" shifts to Baroka's bedroom, what is his favorite wife doing, and how does she use this task to communicate her feelings?

3. When Sadiku conveys Sidi's refusal to Baroka, what is his first reaction, and what changes his feelings?

4. When Lakunle tells the story of Baroka's corruption, what conflicting emotions does he display?

5. When, in the beginning of "Noon," Lakunle compares Sidi to women in the Bible, what message is he trying to send, and what is Sidi's response?

6. What is Sidi's reasoning for turning down the proposal that Baroka sends to her through Sadiku?

7. What argument does Sadiku present to Sidi for marrying Baroka?

8. When Sidi says, "The stranger took my beauty/and placed it in my hands" (20), what claim is she making for the power of the photographs?

9. What evidence is there in "Noon" that there might be genuine affection between Baroka and Sadiku?

10. Explain how Baroka diverted the railroad, and why.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Wole Soyinka won the 1986 Nobel Prize in literature. Read the Swedish Academy's press release upon the occasion of Soyinka's receiving the award (available online) and read Soyinka's banquet speech given December 10, 1986 upon receiving the award (available online). Write an essay in which you consider what characteristics are considered to have made Soyinka an important writer and then compare how his speech and the play The Lion and the Jewel reflect these characteristics. Use textual support from all three sources in support of your claims, and be sure to cite your sources in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

Choose a time in the history of your own country in which the forces of modernization struggled with the forces of tradition over a specific social or technological change. Write about this change, explain the arguments on both sides, and explain how the struggle was similar to and different from the struggle in The Lion and the Jewel. Be sure to cite your sources in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

Write an analysis of Sadiku's character. How does the viewer's understanding of her change from "Noon" to "Night"? Is she a good person in a difficult situation or just a terrible human being? Be sure to support your claims with evidence from the text.

(see the answer keys)

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