Short-Answer Quizzes: Part 4
Study Questions
1. What is the major difference between the two Violets?
2. At the funeral, what was the job that the boy ushers had to do?
3. Why did Violet’s mother jump into the well?
4. Why didn’t Violet want to have children? Why didn’t Joe want to have them?
5. What are some of the sacrifices Violet made to be close to Joe?
6. What are some the tales people told about the big city?
7. What advice does Alice Manfred give to Violet?
8. Why didn’t Violet want to be like her mother?
9. Why did “That Violet” throw the parrot out?
10. At the end of this chapter, laughter seems to save the day. Explain.
Answers
1. The original Violet is unsure of herself and starting to lose her mind. The other Violet is mean and very clear about what she wants to do. The other Violet turned everything she looked at into a potential weapon. She pushed people and fought back when necessary.
2. The boys thought that they would be pallbearers and direct mourners to their seats. When Violet tried to attack the body, their job was to use every ounce of their strength to stop her.
3. Everyone was surprised when Violet’s mother committed suicide because the family’s living conditions were starting to improve. She didn’t end her life when her husband left her, or when the white men evicted her from her home and dumped her from the rocking chair. Perhaps, she took her life at this time because she thought her children were better off under True Belle’s supervision.
4. Both Joe and Violet love children but Violet remembered the powerlessness her mother felt when she was unable to feed them. She didn’t want to put herself in that situation. Joe probably didn’t want children because his mother was a wild woman. If it wasn’t for the kindness of neighbors, he would have been an orphan.
5. When Violet met Joe she was supposed to work temporarily on a cotton crop. She never returned home and got a job on a nearby farm to be close to him. Before she met Joe, Violet never did any heavy farm work. By the time they got married she was muscular and strong and had calloused hands and feet.
6. The tales they heard were that people could earn a lot of money. People bragged that you could make money opening doors, shining shoes, or just helping people. The hardest thing to believe was that there were streets full of African-Americans making money all day and having fun all night.
7. Alice Manfred advises Violet to forget about what has happened and continue loving Joe.
8. Violet did not want to end up like her mother. Especially the way her mother handled most problems. Her solution was to do nothing.
9. The other Violet threw the parrot out because she couldn’t bear to hear it say “I love you.”
10. Alice and Violet are having an intense conversation about Dorcas and Joe. What they are discussing is no laughing matter. Then they notice that the iron has burned the shirt Alice was working on. Upon seeing this accident, they laugh loud and hard.
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