Death in the Mouth: 20‑Question Quiz

Welcome to the comprehensive quiz for Death in the Mouth, the 2022 anthology edited by Sloane Leong. This companion will test your grasp of the book’s 28 stories—from the labyrinthine justice of “Welcome to Labyrinth” to the eerie transformations of “The Black Hole of Beaumort.” Whether you are a first‑time reader or revisiting the collection, these questions will challenge your memory of plot points, character motivations, symbols, and larger connections.

Before you begin, you may find these resources helpful:

The quiz has 20 questions in four categories:

Plot / Sequence (8 questions)
Character Motivation (5 questions)
Theme / Symbol (4 questions)
Synthesis (3 questions)

Questions are a mix of multiple‑choice and short‑answer. The complete answer key appears after all questions.

Part 1: Plot / Sequence

1. In “Welcome to Labyrinth,” what are the three chained, starving creatures that the foreign dignitary sees in the crypt?

A. The Good Girls
B. The Judgement
C. The Beasts
D. The Visitors

2. In “Wind Up Teeth,” how many days have the siblings—Sara, Cam, and Miles—been trapped inside their shuttered home when they first hear strange sounds from upstairs?

A. 1 day
B. 2 days
C. 3 days
D. 4 days

3. In “Drowned in Mindfulness,” how does the chemist Arasibo Campeche die?

A. He overdoses on heroin
B. He is consumed by the sentient wall
C. He slowly drinks heavy water (D₂O)
D. He starves to death

4. In “Her Apocrypha,” what happens to the Abisinian girl with the inverted mouth at the summit of Mount Ah?

A. She escapes into the woods
B. She is eaten by the starving hunters
C. She jumps into the firemouth
D. She becomes the new captain

5. In “The Three Resurrections of my Grandfather,” what is the grandfather’s first resurrected form?

A. A turtle
B. A housefly
C. A monkey
D. A human

6. In “Balloon Girl,” what does Jenny do with her Dreadful Secret?

A. She tells her parents
B. She writes it in a diary
C. She blows the words into pink party balloons
D. She forgets it

7. In “Never Lie To Me,” what happens every time Helen speaks?

A. She stutters uncontrollably
B. She spits diamonds from her mouth
C. Her voice becomes inaudible
D. She tells lies that come true

8. In “On Tattered Wings,” what does Jessica Cho do immediately after her partner Nat dies?

A. She visits a grief counselor
B. She digs up Nat’s grave to attempt a reanimation ritual
C. She burns Nat’s belongings
D. She flees the country

Part 2: Character Motivation

9. In “They Will Take Up Serpents,” why does Charity’s father deny that a snake ever bit her when she confronts him as an adult?

A. He honestly does not remember
B. He wants to maintain control over her memory and his own narrative
C. He is protecting her from the truth
D. He was not present during the revival

10. In “The Mother‑Wound,” why does Essie pursue the shapeshifter that wears her father Lito’s face?

A. To kill the creature
B. To restore her own lost memories and confront her mother
C. To find her missing sister Silvia
D. To escape from the criminals who kidnapped Silvia

11. In “Obedient Son,” why does Chen Wei secretly cut pieces of his own flesh and add them to his mother’s soup?

A. He wants to punish himself for past sins
B. He intends to commit suicide by blood loss
C. He must obey his mother’s demand for meat soup without breaking his Buddhist vow not to harm animals
D. He is trying to feed his sister Chen Xing

12. In “A Bonfire in the Night,” what motivates Lorna to suppress the monster she met under the stairs for many years?

A. Love for her fiancé Michael
B. Guilt over her mother’s death and fear of the monster’s power
C. A promise made to her cousin Anne
D. The monster is too weak to emerge

13. In “Some of Us are Grapefruit,” why does Mother have glass teeth surgically implanted into young Opal’s gums?

A. To make Opal beautiful according to the island’s standards
B. To ensure Opal can never hide behind a false smile, valuing truth above all
C. To protect Opal from being eaten by the alukah
D. To fulfill a ritual requirement for the stone altar

Part 3: Theme / Symbol

14. In “Water Goes, Sand Remains,” what does the lake creature that rises from Lake Van most directly symbolize?

A. The natural beauty of the Armenian highlands
B. The trauma of the Armenian Genocide and the transformative resistance of the women
C. A random supernatural danger
D. The false hope of rescue

15. In “No Hungry Generations,” the family’s insatiable hunger after eating the mysterious bird represents:

A. A punishment for overeating at Thanksgiving
B. Nature’s revenge for the exploitation of the land and creatures
C. A divine test of faith
D. A contagious illness

16. In “They’ll Keep You Gestated,” the voicing computer Pulp ultimately represents:

A. A benevolent AI designed to help patients
B. Beatrice’s own internalized self‑torture and fractured identity
C. A recording of Beatrice’s dead dog
D. A form of advanced medical therapy

17. In “The Black Hole of Beaumort,” the black cosmic disc symbolizes for the painter Juliana:

A. A destructive threat to her town
B. A chance to escape her stifling marriage and mundane existence
C. A scientific puzzle to solve
D. A religious revelation from God

Part 4: Synthesis

Write 3–5 sentences for each of the following questions.

18. Compare the treatment of hunger as a destructive force in “No Hungry Generations” and “Some of Us are Grapefruit.” How do the characters respond differently to insatiable appetite?

19. In multiple stories, characters undergo physical transformation (e.g., Mayr in “Water Goes, Sand Remains,” Kolea in “Paradise,” and Thea in “She”). How does transformation serve as a response to oppression or trauma? Provide examples from at least two stories.

20. Several stories feature a “deal with a dark entity” or supernatural bargain—for instance, the performer’s offer in “Tongue is a Void,” the curse in “The Eggshell Sanctuary,” and the reanimation attempt in “On Tattered Wings.” What do the outcomes of these deals reveal about the characters’ agency?

Answer Key

Plot / Sequence

1. B – The Judgement
The foreign dignitary is taken to see “three chained, starving creatures called the Judgement” (Chapter 1 outline). Distractors: The Good Girls is another name for them, but the formal title is “the Judgement.”

2. C – 3 days
The siblings have been trapped since Tuesday night; by the time they investigate the sounds, it is the third day of rain (Chapter 4 outline).

3. C – He slowly drinks heavy water (D₂O)
Arasibo Campeche describes his death as “slowly drinking heavy water” (Chapter 5 outline).

4. C – She jumps into the firemouth
At the summit of Mount Ah, the Abisinian girl unlashes the rope, turns, and “jumps into the firemouth” (Chapter 7 outline).

5. B – A housefly
The grandfather’s first resurrection is “as a housefly” (Chapter 8 outline).

6. C – She blows the words into pink party balloons
Jenny “blows the words into pink party balloons” and hides them in her closet (Chapter 10 outline).

7. B – She spits diamonds from her mouth
Helen reveals “whenever she speaks, diamonds erupt from her mouth” (Chapter 24 outline).

8. B – She digs up Nat’s grave to attempt a reanimation ritual
Jessica Cho “digs up Nat’s grave and uses a ritual involving bird parts to reanimate her” (Chapter 26 outline).

Character Motivation

9. B – He wants to maintain control over her memory and his own narrative
Charity’s father denies the snake bite and accuses her of being confused or influenced by her mother, a classic revisionist tactic (Chapter 2 outline).

10. B – To restore her own lost memories and confront her mother
Essie is searching for her mother, the Light Bringer. When the creature wears Lito’s face, Essie confronts it and her memories are restored (Chapter 15 outline).

11. C – He must obey his mother’s demand for meat soup without breaking his Buddhist vow not to harm animals
Chen Wei is a Buddhist who vowed not to harm animals; cutting his own flesh allows him to obey his mother technically without breaking the vow (Chapter 14 outline).

12. B – Guilt over her mother’s death and fear of the monster’s power
The monster killed Lorna’s mother when she was five; she suppresses it for years out of guilt and fear (Chapter 17 outline).

13. B – To ensure Opal can never hide behind a false smile, valuing truth above all
Mother tells Opal she wants “only truth”; the glass teeth prevent Opal from hiding behind a conventional smile (Chapter 21 outline).

Theme / Symbol

14. B – The trauma of the Armenian Genocide and the transformative resistance of the women
Mayr and the other mothers become part of the lake, and the lake creature rises to kill soldiers—a direct symbol of transformation through trauma (Chapter 3 outline).

15. B – Nature’s revenge for the exploitation of the land and creatures
The insatiable hunger drives the family to hunt and kill each other, and the story’s themes include “Nature’s revenge” and “Food as trap” (Chapter 6 outline).

16. B – Beatrice’s own internalized self‑torture and fractured identity
Pulp’s voice echoes Beatrice’s own, and she realizes she is both the tormentor and the patient (Chapter 12 outline).

17. B – A chance to escape her stifling marriage and mundane existence
Juliana feels a deep connection to the void, and her absorption into it represents an escape from her everyday life (Chapter 25 outline).

Synthesis (Model Answers)

18. In “No Hungry Generations,” the family’s appetite leads them to kill and sacrifice one another; they are unable to control their hunger and it destroys them. In “Some of Us are Grapefruit,” Opal also has an insatiable appetite (as an alukah), but she tries to resist it—she seeks to unmake herself on the stone altar rather than continue devouring. Opal’s dead lovers even offer themselves willingly, showing that her hunger can be channeled into a form of mutual devotion, whereas the family’s hunger is purely predatory and self‑destructive.

19. Transformation allows characters to reclaim power from oppressive forces. In “Water Goes, Sand Remains,” Mayr’s metamorphosis into a lake creature enables her to fight the soldiers during the Armenian Genocide, turning her body into a weapon of resistance. In “Paradise,” Kolea turns into plant matter after her sister Nakana transforms the island; her dissolution into the soil represents a surrender to ecological revenge, but also a fusion with the land she could not protect. In “She,” Thea’s transformation into a swamp creature gives her the strength to kill her abusive father and escape her village. In each case, physical change is a direct response to trauma—whether genocide, cult manipulation, or domestic abuse.

20. The outcomes reveal that agency is complex and often paradoxical. In “Tongue is a Void,” the performer refuses both the perfect life and the easy death offered by the entity, using an ancient chant to banish it—choosing to continue struggling. In “The Eggshell Sanctuary,” the narrator’s eggshell eruptions are involuntary; she has little choice over her body’s testimony, and her withdrawal from the world suggests limited agency. In “On Tattered Wings,” Jessica’s well‑meaning ritual fails because it violates Nat’s own wish for freedom, showing that agency must respect the will of others. Together, the stories suggest that true agency is not simply exercising power but also recognizing limits and accepting consequences.

Ready for more?