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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. Why does Ellison reject the "hard-boiled" novel style of writing?
(a) Focused on detectives and criminals.
(b) Too boring for what he wants to say.
(c) Full of physical violence, social cynicism and understatement.
(d) Primarily a white form of writing.

3. What does Wright do at age four?
(a) Makes a speech at church.
(b) Sets the house on fire.
(c) Plays the piano.
(d) Begins to read.

4. What Bible myth is referred to in "The World and the Jug?"
(a) Baby Moses and the Pharaoh's daughter.
(b) Garden of Eden.
(c) Noah, Ham, Shem and Japheth.
(d) Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

5. What specific folk art form does "Black Boy" reflect?
(a) African ethnic mask making.
(b) Modern dance.
(c) The blues.
(d) Folk sculpture.

6. What work of literature seizes Ellison's young mind early on?
(a) Black like me.
(b) The American Constitution.
(c) The Bible.
(d) The Waste Land.

7. In the essay "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke" what does Ellison say black face allows white America to do?
(a) Pour out its hatred and fear in a theatrical form.
(b) Laugh and forget about its troubles and woes.
(c) See the Negro story from a different perspective.
(d) Avoid looking at the shallowness of white American culture.

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

9. Where is Richard Wright born?
(a) In a log cabin located in the heart of Nebraska.
(b) In the New York City Negro hospital
(c) On a Mississippi plantation.
(d) On a train as it traveled from Georgia to Maine.

10. What book does Hemingway believe all modern American fiction sprang from?
(a) The Red Badge of Courage.
(b) Moby Dick.
(c) Huckleberry Finn.
(d) The Bible.

11. What does Huckleberry Finn recognize about the Negro character, Jim?
(a) Jim knows the landscape and can take Huck anywhere.
(b) Jim is not only a slave, but a human being.
(c) Jim is very ill and near death.
(d) Jim can make him lots of money if Huck will return him to his owner.

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

13. Where does Ellison give the public address "Hidden Name and Complex Fate?"
(a) nternational Peace Conference in Geneva, New York.
(b) Library of Congress in 1964.
(c) Rutgers University Convocation on Race and Entitlement.
(d) National Association of the Advancement of Colored People.

14. What musician does Ellison see as the true "trickster" archetype?
(a) Louis Armstrong.
(b) Charlie Parker.
(c) Jack Benny.
(d) Mahalia Jackson.

15. Who is Irving Howe?
(a) Negro professor from Mississippi University.
(b) Hispanic Indian man who met Ellison in a bar.
(c) Pseudonym for Richard Wright.
(d) White liberal writer from New York City.

Short Answer Questions

1. What Greek myth does Ellison refer to in "Brave Words?"

2. For Ellison who is the greatest artist the south has ever produced?

3. What does Ellison praise about "Primer for White Folks?"

4. How does Ellison describe his boyhood experience in Oklahoma?

5. What type of literature does Ellison believe Wright's novel "Black Boy" is?

(see the answer keys)

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