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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. According to Mustafa's Uncle Omar, the Portuguese army that occupied Azemmur in Mustafa's youth and then took the city in the Battle of Azemmur numbered how many thousand men?

2. How many husbands did Heniya, Mustafa's mother, have before she married Mustafa's father?

3. How many slaves on the ship that carried Mustafa had "indentured themselves for no money, only the promise of a meal a day" (82)?

4. What sound first alerted Mustafa to the possibility that women were being abducted from the mound by members of the expedition?

5. What smell reached the members of the expedition and acted as the first sign that they were approaching Aute?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Mustafa react to his father's plans for Mustafa's future career?

2. How old was Mustafa when his father first shared with him his plans for Mustafa's future career and what details did he share?

3. In what way did Mustafa again undergo a name change when he was purchased by Señor Dorantes? What significance does he now find in this change?

4. Who is Estabanico and how does the narrator feel about the name?

5. With what element of life did Mustafa become too entranced, causing him to eventually name it among the causes of his downfall?

6. Discuss a scene Mustafa describes that would almost certainly not have appeared in the "Castilian gentlemen's" (3) official account?

7. For what reason did the happiness of Mustafa and his family move?

8. Mustafa's memory of being purchased by Señor Dorantes primarily involves which of the five senses? In what way?

9. What does the caftan symbolize within Chapter 4: "The Story of Aemmur"?

10. In what way does the motif of water enter the story of Mustafa's birth, as related in Chapter 2: "The Story of My Birth"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze the ways in which the themes of adaptability and resignation appear within Lalami’s novel The Moor's Account. What message is Lalami sending about these two themes over the course of the narrative?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Lalami's choice to tell the story of The Moor's Account using the first person point-of-view from Mustafa’s perspective. What elements of the novel's themes lend themselves to this choice and what are Lalami’s intended effects on the reader?

Essay Topic 3

What message does Lalami send within the pages of The Moor's Account concerning the link between oppression and brutality?

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