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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What folk tradition does Ellison believe the black face figure grows out of?
(a) Europe.
(b) West Indies.
(c) America.
(d) Africa.

3. How old is Crane when he wrote his masterpiece "The Red Badge of Courage?"
(a) 21.
(b) 16,
(c) 79.
(d) 45.

4. What type of literature does Ellison believe Wright's novel "Black Boy" is?
(a) Autobiography.
(b) Work of fiction.
(c) Sociological case history.
(d) Weapon against prejudice and injustice.

5. What does the phrase "to finger its jagged grain and to transcend it" refer to?
(a) The complexity of writing fiction.
(b) The power of the blues.
(c) To walk the razor's edge of reason.
(d) To climb great mountains.

6. Other white cultures have black face type entertainment, but what is different about American black face?
(a) The American history of inclusive entertainment makes it acceptable.
(b) American black face is performed by Negro actors only.
(c) American black face is always light and fun.
(d) The American history of slavery makes it a "ritual of exorcism."

7. Where might Crane have gotten information about the Civil War?
(a) His own experience.
(b) Manuscripts and letters.
(c) Intensive scholarly research.
(d) His brother.

8. Who is Henry Bowman Otto Davis?
(a) Editor of the first magazine which published Ellison.
(b) Little white boy known as Hoolie befriended by the young Ellison.
(c) Father of Ellison's grade school nemesis, Horatio Davis.
(d) Author of "Radios and Communication, a guide."

9. What Greek myth does Ellison refer to in "Brave Words?"
(a) Theseus and Antigone.
(b) Zeus and Poseidon.
(c) The birth of Athena.
(d) The Odyssey and Proteus.

10. As a child what is Wright unable to distinguish between?
(a) His fair-skinned grandmother and the white women of the town.
(b) Day and night.
(c) When to be quiet and when to speak.
(d) Right and Wrong.

11. Why does Ellison choose to analyze Ernest Hemingway?
(a) Hemingway grew up in Oklahoma City also.
(b) Hemingway sold more books than any other American author.
(c) Hemingway was not American.
(d) Hemingway ignored the dramatic and symbolic possibilities a Negro character would present.

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

13. Who is Ellison named after?
(a) Ralph Roosevelt Ellison.
(b) Ralph Waldo Emerson.
(c) Ralph Kramden.
(d) Ralph Winston Ellison.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Crane die of and where?

2. Hemingway carries on Twain's technical discoveries in writing but loses what?

3. That Ellison's first novel might win a prestigious award makes him think what?

4. Where does Ellison give the public address "Hidden Name and Complex Fate?"

5. Why does Ellison choose to write "Invisible Man" in a non-naturalistic way?

(see the answer keys)

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