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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Part 1, The Seer and the Seen, Section 5.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is dangerous and different about Wright's attitude?
(a) Was loud and demanding of others.
(b) Sought individual freedom in a "pre-individual" Negro culture.
(c) Refused to participate in school.
(d) Ran for public office and refused to accept defeat.

2. Why do Crane and his wife move to England?
(a) It was more exotic to Crane than New York.
(b) He was wanted for several crimes.
(c) To escape rumors that she was an ex-madam.
(d) It was more civilized.

3. Ellison says Hemingway sought technical perfection rather than what?
(a) Moral insight.
(b) Lyrical qualities.
(c) Fame and notoriety.
(d) Financial gain.

4. How does Ellison describe Wright's autobiography "Black Boy?"
(a) An angry young man's immoderate tale of delusion.
(b) A non-white intellectual's statement of his relationship with Western culture.
(c) The Negro answer to "Huckleberry Finn."
(d) Another failed attempt to pierce the great wall between races.

5. Violence is inflicted upon Wright by family, friends, and society as a whole. What is his response?
(a) Retreat.
(b) Violence.
(c) Passivity.
(d) Seclusion.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is minstrel show black face?

2. What does Mark Twain do with the character of Jim that breaks through the black face minstrel tradition?

3. What musician does Ellison see as the true "trickster" archetype?

4. What does the phrase "to finger its jagged grain and to transcend it" refer to?

5. What is the origin of the essay "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke?"

(see the answer key)

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