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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 3.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Ralph Ellison's father hope that Ralph will grow up to be?
(a) Police officer.
(b) College professor.
(c) Poet.
(d) Jazz musician.

2. Why does Ellison's family live in a middle class white neighborhood in Oklahoma City?
(a) His mother, a single parent, is a custodian in an apartment building there.
(b) Ellison's family has always been well to do and had nice houses.
(c) There is no Negro neighborhood in Oklahoma City.
(d) Ellison's father made a great deal of money in the railroad business.

3. What is Ellison's original career direction?
(a) Tend gardens.
(b) Play the trumpet.
(c) Design buildings.
(d) Heal the sick.

4. What is the relationship between Ellison and Stanley Hyman?
(a) Writers who abhor each other's work.
(b) Cousins who grew up together in Oklahoma.
(c) Friends and intellectual sparing partners.
(d) Professors competing over the same university job.

5. Why does Ellison choose to analyze William Falkner?
(a) Falkner is very critical of Ellison's novel.
(b) Falkner is a close personal friend of Ellison.
(c) Falkner writes about Negro life with mixed motives but also with great success.
(d) Falkner is a great artist and could not be left out of the discussion.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Ellison grow up?

2. How does Ellison start writing?

3. What folk tradition does Ellison believe the black face figure grows out of?

4. What book does Hemingway believe all modern American fiction sprang from?

5. What does Ellison say good fiction is made of?

(see the answer key)

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