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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Around what time is the novel narrated?
(a) 1983.
(b) 1973.
(c) 1989.
(d) 1929.

2. Why does the older brother leave the colony to return to France?
(a) To obtain a technical education.
(b) To meet his future wife.
(c) Because he fights too much with his siblings.
(d) Because he is ill.

3. How does the narrator wear dresses?
(a) Backwards.
(b) Very tight to show off her body.
(c) As if they were sacks.
(d) A little loose but fitted.

4. Later in life, what does the narrator write many books about?
(a) Sex.
(b) The family's situation.
(c) China.
(d) Colonial women.

5. Which best describes the narrator's use of make-up?
(a) She doesn't wear make-up.
(b) She wears light make-up.
(c) She wears only lipstick.
(d) She wears heavy make-up.

Short Answer Questions

1. What contributed to the narrator's ravaged face?

2. Who in the novel is both physically and mentally abusive?

3. Between which years do most of the action referred to in the novel take place?

4. About how many years older than the narrator is the older brother?

5. In which city does the family reside while living in Chochichina?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who chooses to ignore the relationship? Why?

2. What is the relationship between the mother and Dô, and what does it indicate?

3. In what way does the narrator participate in the trend of the colonial potentates taking younger French mistresses?

4. How does the moment on the ferry where the narrator meets the lover become a turning point in the life of the narrator and her family?

5. How does the narrator feel after she receives news of the younger brother's death?

6. What metaphor is used in sync with the narrator's perfect moment in time, when she is on the ferry where she will meet the lover?

7. Describe the narrator's outfit in Segment 2. In what way does it transform her?

8. Who was blamed for the behavior of the husbands and why?

9. What does the lover fear that the narrator wants from the relationship, and how does the narrator respond?

10. What becomes of the older brother after the narrator's family moves back to France?

(see the answer keys)

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