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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 is it that people like Jack, Bledsoe and Norton have refused to do?

2. What surprising development does the narrator experience when he attends a committee meeting?

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

4. What is the symbolic association of the arena in Chapter 16?

5. When has the narrator made most of his mistakes?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Brother Jack defend the narrator at this point?

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

3. Explain the initial results of the narrator's strategy of "yessing" them to death.

4. Why is Ras' anger ironic?

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

6. Why does the lady on the street become angry when he tries to put the figurine in the trash can?

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

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

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

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

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

What is illusion? Can illusion be imposed upon a person without his consent? Can illusion be chosen so effectively that a person believes his own fancies? Discuss which characters are choosing to be deluded. Is the delusion helping or hurting their cause?

(see the answer keys)

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