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

2. How does Ellison start writing?
(a) His mother asks him to write the story of her life.
(b) Ellison is commissioned by the New York City Opera to write a libretto.
(c) Ellison fails to get into the jazz band he wants so he writes about it.
(d) Richard Wright asks him to review a novel for Wright's magazine.

3. Where is the essay "Stephen Crane and the Mainstream of American Fiction" published?
(a) In the Atlantic Monthly.
(b) As an introduction to "The Red Badge of Courage" 1960 printing.
(c) In the Harvard Review of Literature, 1950.
(d) It was never published.

4. How many children are in Stephen Crane's birth family?
(a) 20.
(b) 2.
(c) 14.
(d) 1.

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. How old is Crane when he wrote his masterpiece "The Red Badge of Courage?"

3. Where might Crane have gotten information about the Civil War?

4. What does Crane die of and where?

5. What is the relationship between Ellison and Stanley Hyman?

(see the answer key)

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