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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. How does Ellison describe Wright's autobiography "Black Boy?"
(a) An angry young man's immoderate tale of delusion.
(b) The Negro answer to "Huckleberry Finn."
(c) A non-white intellectual's statement of his relationship with Western culture.
(d) Another failed attempt to pierce the great wall between races.

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

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

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

5. What does Ellison say good fiction is made of?
(a) What is real.
(b) Tricks of the trade.
(c) Eternal truth.
(d) Fun.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is it that widens Ellison's world in a dramatic way?

2. What is the occasion of Ellison's speech "Brave Words on a Startling Occasion?"

3. What is the name of the college Ellison attended?

4. What is the origin of the essay "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke?"

5. What is the "Hidden Name" referred to in the title of Ellison's speech?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the phrase "The World and the Jug" refers to?

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

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

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

5. What does Ellison compare Wright's personal journey of blooming to?

6. What is the common image of the Negro in contemporary literature according to Ellison?

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

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

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

10. Why was the young Ellison drawn to reading?

(see the answer keys)

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