View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Ellison believe is the true "Negro experience?"
(a) The opposite of the "white experience."
(b) A life of unremitting suffering and pain.
(c) A codified, suffocating existence which cannot be understood by others.
(d) There isn't one. Negro persons live diverse and varied lives.

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

3. What type of jug does Ellison believe young Negro writers, such as himself, are in?
(a) Expensive jug, one to be carefully guarded.
(b) Transparent jug, stuck inside but able to see out.
(c) Broken jug, leaking and being wasted.
(d) Small overcrowded jug.

4. Where and when is "The World and The Jug" published?
(a) Paris Review, 1966.
(b) New York Times, 1965.
(c) New Leader, 1963 and 1964.
(d) Mississippian, 1967 and 1968.

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

6. Why does Ellison choose to write "Invisible Man" in a non-naturalistic way?
(a) To capture the fluidity and diversity of America.
(b) To be released from expectations.
(c) To bring in supernatural elements.
(d) To be the first Negro writer to write science-fiction.

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

8. 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 train as it traveled from Georgia to Maine.
(d) On a Mississippi plantation.

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

10. 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) Be whoever they would and could be.
(c) Negros could never equal the lives of white Americans.
(d) Negros had no chance of doing anything interesting in life.

11. Why does Ellison chose not to emphasize the details of racial hardship in his life?
(a) Too painful for him to speak about.
(b) To avoid boring the audience.
(c) It is a Negro audience and they already know his story.
(d) It is a white audience and he fears they will be uncomfortable.

12. What does Falkner understand about racial social code of the South?
(a) It will never change.
(b) Here today, gone tomorrow.
(c) It is fragile and illusionary.
(d) Destructive to both Negro and white parts of society.

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

14. Who names Ellison?
(a) The midwife that delivered him.
(b) His father.
(c) A passing stranger.
(d) His parish priest.

15. Who is Mrs. L.C. McFarland?
(a) History teacher in Ellison's grade school.
(b) Author of "Bound for Glory Someday".
(c) Woman who would become Ellison's second wife.
(d) Literary critic for the New York Post.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Where is the essay "Richard Wright's Blues" published and when?

3. What assumption does Ellison start with when writing about Negro persons?

4. What does Mark Twain do with the character of Jim that breaks through the black face minstrel tradition?

5. What Bible myth is referred to in "The World and the Jug?"

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 721 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample