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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 Ellison say the greatest difficulty for the Negro writer is?
(a) Find a subject worthy of his time and effort.
(b) Reveal what he truly feels rather than serving up what Negroes are supposed to feel.
(c) Get someone to publish him because most of the publishers were white.
(d) Capture the Negro speech idiom and put it down on paper.

2. Falkner writes exclusively of the southern experience yet Ellison believes him to be addressing what?
(a) Inevitable rise and fall of every civilization.
(b) Effect of war upon culture.
(c) Nature of man.
(d) Northern Negro experience.

3. What is the origin of the essay "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke?"
(a) Short story about lynching.
(b) Letter written by Ellison when he was living in Rome to an old friend.
(c) Treatise on the folk art of tying knots.
(d) "Invisible Man."

4. What does Ellison say good fiction is made of?
(a) Fun.
(b) What is real.
(c) Tricks of the trade.
(d) Eternal truth.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is Stanley Hyman's favorite archetypal figure?

2. Who is Stanley Edgar Hyman?

3. What is minstrel show black face?

4. Other white cultures have black face type entertainment, but what is different about American black face?

5. What is Ellison's original career direction?

(see the answer key)

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