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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. What distresses Ellison most about the essay "Black Boys and Native Sons?"
(a) Uses the word "Boy" in its title.
(b) Written only for a white audience.
(c) Assumes an absolute separation of the races.
(d) Criticizes his own writing.

2. Which critics of "Black Boy" does Ellison want to respond to?
(a) Those who believe Wright is a communist.
(b) Those who believe Wright is self-involved.
(c) Those who see the book as a miracle and its author a mystery.
(d) Those who believe Wright is exaggerating the truth.

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

4. Who is the editor of "The Primer for White Folks?"
(a) Ralph Ellison.
(b) Richard Wright.
(c) Bucklin Moon.
(d) Anonymous.

5. Why do Crane and his wife move to England?
(a) It was more civilized.
(b) To escape rumors that she was an ex-madam.
(c) It was more exotic to Crane than New York.
(d) He was wanted for several crimes.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the phrase "beating that boy" mean?

2. As a child what do Ellison and his boyhood friends believe they are to do?

3. What is Ellison's original choice of career?

4. What type of jug does Ellison believe young Negro writers, such as himself, are in?

5. How does Ellison describe the writer Malraux?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Did Richard Wright influence Baldwin or Ellison?

3. What were the two greatest influences upon Crane's life, in Ellison's estimation?

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

5. Why does Ellison choose to write about Faulkner?

6. In "Richard Wright's blues" how does Ellison describe the blues?

7. What was Ellison's writing process for "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke?"

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

9. When Ellison accepts the American National Book Award for "The Invisible Man" what does he say that the award is recognizing?

10. What, for Ellison, is the great shaping event of twentieth-century fiction?

(see the answer keys)

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