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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. The night before Brown and Jones leave, what does Brown do?
(a) Invite Doctor Magiot over for a drink.
(b) Lies awake worrying about the excursion.
(c) Invite Martha over.
(d) Wander the hotel looking at the rooms.

2. What day do Brown and Jones leave town?
(a) Thursday.
(b) Tuesday.
(c) Monday.
(d) Sunday.

3. In Chapter One, what is distinctive about Jones's driver, the man who ruined Joseph?
(a) His gold teeth.
(b) His severe limp.
(c) His long facial scar.
(d) His harsh laugh.

4. Why do Mr. and Mrs. Smith decide not to build the vegetarian center?
(a) The Minister has no intention of helping them.
(b) It would take too many years to finish.
(c) There are too many bureaucratic hoops to jump through.
(d) They are weary of fighting the Haitian way of thinking.

5. While listening to Mr. Smith describe the vegetarian center, what does the Secretary for Social Welfare doodle on his paper?
(a) Concentric circles.
(b) Mr. Smith's face.
(c) Sketches for the building entrance.
(d) Percentage marks and plus signs.

Short Answer Questions

1. At the beginning of Chapter Two, why does Joseph ask Brown to attend a Voodoo ceremony?

2. Mrs. Smith is proud of the American ballot that shows her husband's name as a presidential candidate. What is Brown's perception of voting in Haiti?

3. For the first time during Chapter 1 of Part 2, Martha mentions her father. Why is he disgraced in Brown's eyes?

4. As Brown and Martha lie outside in the grass, what does Brown realize about the character of their relationship?

5. Part 3, Chapter 1 opens with a dream that Brown has. What is this dream?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Brown's car breaks down on the road, he and Jones take refuge in a cemetery until the morning. How does this fit their time in Haiti? How does it portend what is to come?

2. Brown feels that the happiest moment he spent with Martha was when they lay outside on the grass, talking. How does this compare to his initial feelings about the relationship? What does this moment portend about the future of their relationship?

3. According to Doctor Magiot in Part 2, Chapter 1, what role does Voodoo play in Haitian culture? What is its relation to Catholicism?

4. What is the significance of saying Doctor Philipot's coffin is filled with bricks?

5. Young Philipot, who visits Brown while he is swimming one early afternoon, is consumed with the idea of owning a Bren gun and fighting Papa Doc's army with it. In his idealism, what other character does he resemble and why?

6. The night before he takes Jones out of Port-au-Prince, Brown wanders through his empty hotel. What does it reveal to the reader about Brown's personality? What is the effect of this scene?

7. As the two men wait out the night in the cemetery, Jones tells Brown the truth about his life. Is this a fitting time for his confession? Why would he confess to Brown instead of anyone else?

8. Why do Mr. and Mrs. Smith refer several times to their experience in Nashville? Brown wonders this himself, when Mrs. Smith references that incident in order to win an argument with her husband.

9. When Mr. Smith, Brown, and the Secretary for Social Welfare survey Duvalierville with the purpose of building a vegetarian center, the only person they see is a justice of the peace. What is the irony of this man?

10. At the end of Part 2, Chapter 1, Brown comes to a realization about himself. What is this realization? How does it change the reader's understanding of him? How does it fit with his wandering to the casino and then to the Medea, talking with the purser?

(see the answer keys)

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