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

2. 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 is fully integrated and equality was legislated.
(c) It has no tradition of slavery.
(d) Oklahoma is founded on Mormon principles which forbade prejudice.

3. Why does Ellison consider Stephen Crane a great artist?
(a) Under pressure and panic he stuck to his guns.
(b) He wrote so many books.
(c) He was the first great Negro author.
(d) He was talented in so many artistic fields.

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

5. Which American writers is the piece "Black Boys and Native Sons" about?
(a) Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin.
(b) Joe Henry, Jules Verne and Thomas Edison.
(c) Irving Howe, Ralph Ellison and Joe Frasier.
(d) William Faulkner, Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Ellison describe the philosopher Kierkegaard in the "Stephen Crane.." essay?

2. How does Ellison describe the writer Malraux?

3. How does Ellison describe his boyhood experience in Oklahoma?

4. What does Ellison believe is the true "Negro experience?"

5. As a child what is Wright unable to distinguish between?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is different about Oklahoma and the relationship of different races when compared to the South or even to Texas?

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

3. Though "Black Boy" presents a brutal and violent world, what else does it manage to convey about the young Wright?

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

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

6. What writers are at issue in the exchange between Irving Howe and Ralph Ellison?

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

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

9. Why does Ellison choose to write about Faulkner?

10. What does Ellison find so remarkable about Crane?

(see the answer keys)

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