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

2. What are the three themes of "Shadow and Act" according to the Introduction?
(a) White people, Black people, and Native Americans.
(b) Literature, Jazz/Blues and the relationship between Negro America and American culture.
(c) Classical Dance, Country Music and Folk Art.
(d) Racism, Poverty and Obstruction of Justice.

3. How does Ellison describe his boyhood experience in Oklahoma?
(a) Series of mind numbing and violent episodes.
(b) Poverty stricken existence with little enjoyment.
(c) Very controlled and regimented experience.
(d) Romantic aspirations in the spirit of frontier adventurousness.

4. As a child what do Ellison and his boyhood friends believe they are to do?
(a) They were doomed to hard manual labor and suffering.
(b) Negros had no chance of doing anything interesting in life.
(c) Be whoever they would and could be.
(d) Negros could never equal the lives of white Americans.

5. Why does Oklahoma hold some freedom and equality for Negroes at the time Ellison lived there?
(a) It has no tradition of slavery.
(b) Oklahoma is founded on Mormon principles which forbade prejudice.
(c) It is fully integrated and equality was legislated.
(d) There are almost no Negroes in Oklahoma.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Ellison say the greatest difficulty for the Negro writer is?

2. Who is Stanley Edgar Hyman?

3. Where does Ellison grow up?

4. Where and when is the essay "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke" published?

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

(see the answer key)

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