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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. During the scene on the ferry, why does the narrator go to stand by the railing?

2. Why does the older brother leave the colony to return to France?

3. What is the name of the mother?

4. What type of stores does the narrator often visit?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the narration of events work in this novel? Is the way that narrator chooses to tell the story confusing or compelling?

2. How does the lover feel about the narrator at the end of the relationship?

3. In segment 13, what happens between the narrator and the lover that results in the narrator being turned off by the lover for the first time?

4. How was the narrator able to understand colonial life at such an early age?

5. 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?

6. Why does the narrator believe that she is able to become anything anyone wants her to be? What does this mean?

7. What structural functions does the opening segment of the novel perform?

8. What happens to the lover after the narrator leaves for France?

9. Is the narrator in control of the relationship with the lover, through its beginning to the end?

10. How does the mother feel about the education of her children? How do they act in return?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Although the colony of Chochinchina is a French colony, it is far removed from France. Explain the differences in the colony of Chochinchina and France as seen through the life of the narrator and her family. Do the differences have anything to do with the shift in time periods? Does life change for the narrator simply because she is no longer under the rule of her dysfunctional family?

Essay Topic 2

French Indochina was a French colony predominantly made up of non-Caucasian natives and French and foreign colonists. How would this arrangement lead to the presence of institutional or colonial racism? How is colonial racism addressed in this novel? What characters in the novel express racism? Provide examples.

Essay Topic 3

The narrator tells a few stories in the novel that seemingly have nothing to do with the plot or her life story. However, these stories can be seen to parallel the narrator's own story. What are these stories or instances that the narrator relates to the reader? Summarize them and explain why or how they are used as metaphors for the narrator's life. Why does the narrator choose to use these comparisons?

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