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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay 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) His mother, a single parent, is a custodian in an apartment building there.
(d) Ellison's family has always been well to do and had nice houses.

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

3. What does Crane die of and where?
(a) In a fierce battle on the plains of Alsace.
(b) Tuberculosis, in the far Black Forest of Germany.
(c) The black plague of 1834, in London, England.
(d) Murder, on board a ship crossing the Atlantic.

4. 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.

5. What are the three major section of the "Primer for White Folks?"
(a) Heritage, Short Stories, Today and Tomorrow.
(b) White, Negro, Mixed Race.
(c) Beginning, Middle, End.
(d) Right, Wrong, Ambivilent.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is Ellison named after?

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

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

4. Where does Ellison say civil wars are fought?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Ellison critique about the authors included in the Primer?

2. How did a library for Negro persons emerge in Oklahoma City?

3. As a child Ellison imagined himself as a "Renaissance man." What does that mean?

4. Why does Ellison consider Stephen Crane to be such a great artist?

5. How does Ellison leave the rather bitter dialogue with Howe?

6. What is the difference between the way Hyman and Ellison view "the darky" entertainer?

7. What does Ellison admire most about "The Primer for White Folks?"

8. What does the phrase "beating that boy" refer to?

9. What is the "hidden name" Ellison is referring in the title of his speech to the Library of Congress in 1064?

10. Did Richard Wright influence Baldwin or Ellison?

(see the answer keys)

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