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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. What does the narrator spontaneously decide to buy?

2. What do the yams symbolize?

3. Brother Jack wants the narrator to avoid underestimating what?

4. What awakens the narrator in Chapter 15?

5. Upon the narrator's return to Harlem, he learns which of the following individuals has disappeared from the Brotherhood?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is the narrator's work on the "woman question" cut short?

2. Explain why the "woman question" is typical of the Brotherhood's approach to issues.

3. How does Emma's conversation create a sense of foreboding?

4. What is the significance of the black thread that controls the dancing doll?

5. In what way could the new shoes be symbolic?

6. Explain the irony of the figurine owned by Mary.

7. Why does Jack become angry with the man who asks the narrator to sing a "spiritual"?

8. What puzzling irony does the narrator tell us about the human race?

9. To what does Brother Tarp attribute the warning letter?

10. How do we know at this point that the lobotomy has not been completely successful in changing the narrator's personality?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explain why the Brotherhood chooses the narrator. What factors have made him particularly vulnerable to their approach? How do his own intentions change as he begins working with them?

Essay Topic 2

The African American people--at whatever geographic location they are found in the novel--seem to have little hope of a future that is equal to the whites in terms of wealth, status, education, or upward mobility. Whether they are in the north or the south, the forces that impede progress have much in common. For example, Norton requires a barely "post-slavery" recipient, that is, someone who needs the help he imagines he is giving, in order for his endeavors to have any meaning. Similarly, numerous philosophers have suggested that we need the poor and downtrodden among us in order to have a subject upon which to practice charity. Discuss several different ways in which this attitude is expressed in the novel. Show what this approach of using a particular group target upon which to practice an ideology accomplishes both for the subject group and for the "charitable" or practicing entity.

Essay Topic 3

Write an analysis of the various locations in which the narrator lives, i.e, the college, Harlem, in his new apartment, and finally in the "hole." Discuss how each location is a reflection of his changing attitude/character.

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