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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. What does the narrator lack in Chapter 12?
(a) A sense of direction
(b) money to live on
(c) his interest in returning to college
(d) motivation to keep going

2. What procedure is performed on the narrator?
(a) mind control implants
(b) both castration and a lobotomy
(c) a prefrontal lobotomy
(d) castration

3. The dark tunnel is symbolic of the narrator's
(a) unwillingness to face the truth
(b) invisible nature in relation to white people
(c) lack of knowledge about himself
(d) lack of understanding about culture and society as a whole

4. According to the vet, who controls "things"?
(a) rich people
(b) white, upper-class males
(c) black people
(d) white people

5. According to Mr. Brockway, what happened when the company tried to replace him?
(a) The union went to bat for him.
(b) No one else would take the job
(c) All the paint went bad
(d) The other workers went on strike

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the real purpose of the Reverend's speech?

2. Of what does the vet accuse Mr. Norton?

3. The narrator's need to give speeches is an example of what literary device?

4. Why does the narrator feel disillusioned when looking at the picture of the Founder?

5. What does Trueblood's story suggest about the white men at the jail house?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what way, according to the veteran, is the narrator likely to become a casualty?

2. What does Ellison mean when he says that for African Americans, all wars are "wars within wars."

3. What surprises the narrator upon his arrival in Harlem?

4. Why was the narrator doomed to fail at the paint factory?

5. How has the narrator ended up in the factory hospital? How is he being treated once he gets there?

6. Why is Harlem a particularly appropriate setting for the novel?

7. What does Mary Rambo want the narrator to do?

8. Why does the drug store have the pork chop and grits special?

9. What does Dr. Bledsoe mean by "acting the nigger."

10. Why is important to know that the introduction was written 30 years after the novel itself?

(see the answer keys)

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