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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. Where does the narrator find himself in chapter 11?

2. What is ironic about Trueblood's situation?

3. Who else is on the bus to New York?

4. Which of the following two concepts, in combination, does Ellison see as a "raft of hope."

5. Ellison's original story was written about which of the following?

Short Essay Questions

1. What final action does the hospital take to ensure the narrator's silence?

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

3. Why do the people at the Men's House treat him with hostility?

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

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

6. To what kind of action has music called the narrator?

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

8. What does Ellison mean by "benign neglect"?

9. Why do the grandfather's dying words make the narrator feel guilty about receiving praise?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Early in the novel, the narrator endures a non-surgical pre-frontal lobotomy that is supposed to erase his memories, make him a more pliable worker, and prevent him from bringing charges against the factory. He does change after the experience, but not exactly in the way usually expected of a lobotomy. Discuss the changes that begin taking place. What changes are permanent? What changes seem to occur gradually? Do they make the narrator a better man?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the women in the novel: Mary, Emma, Sybil, the nuns, and the white woman at the rally. What role do the women play in the narrator's development?

Essay Topic 3

Early in the novel, the graduating black boys are deliberately used as cruel sport for the white men at a club. Norton is at the club with all the other white men. Norton does not care about the black boys any more than anyone else does. Therefore, what is his purpose at the college? Explain the things that Mr. Norton and Brother Jack have in common.

(see the answer keys)

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