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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 Dupre want to do prior to starting the fire?

2. What does the narrator discover about Jack?

3. What had the narrator's grandfather learned to accept?

4. Why does the narrator remain in his hole for a long while?

5. What does the figurine symbolize?

Short Essay Questions

1. What epiphany has the narrator experienced regarding his race?

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

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

4. What is the primary problem with the instructions given to the narrator to gather more members?

5. What was the narrator's real problem, and how has he settled it?

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

7. What strikes the narrator as the profound truth about the riot?

8. Identify several mistakes that the narrator makes in his first assigned speech in Harlem.

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

10. Why is the narrator's funeral oration more moving than if he had planned a speech based according to party guidelines?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

On several different occasions, the narrator speaks directly to the reader, ending in his epilogue with "perhaps I speak for you...." Who do you think Ellison imagined as his most likely audience? If the various groups of people in the book could be allegorical representations of cultural groups--i.e. college administrators, blue collar employers, political party leaders, low income minority groups, etc.--what message would they perceive in the novel? Choose two or three different groups and tell how the story might speak to each of them.

Essay Topic 2

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.

Essay Topic 3

Someone has said that heresy is simply truth carried to an extreme. Explain, therefore, how either diversity or unity could be carried to an extreme, misused, and thus become heretical.

(see the answer keys)

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