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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What are Crane's parents like?

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

3. How does Ellison start writing?

4. Who names Ellison?

5. Who is Irving Howe?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What does the Negro say when white America holds up twentieth century fiction and say "this is the American reality?"

4. Where do Ellison and Hyman divide in their understanding of black face minstrel performance?

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

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

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

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

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

10. Why does Ellison choose to write about Faulkner?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke" Ellison challenges Stanley Hyman's assertion the "smart man playing dumb" role is primarily Negro. What does Ellison propose is the true case? What examples does he use to argue that this "joke" is much broader than Negro culture? How does this understanding fit with the larger theme in Ellison's work of the relationship between Negro culture and American culture?

Essay Topic 2

The final essay in the book was never published. It is a book review of the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal who was brought in by the Carnegie Foundation to study the "Negro problem." What is Ellison's primary reaction to the book? What is positive in Myrdal's assessment? What does Ellison object to? Why do you think the review was never published?

Essay Topic 3

Ellison poetically describes a lost and lovely world in "The Golden Age, Time Past." Minton's Playhouse is an amalgamation of home, community, the South, and the noisy excitement of New York City. What influence does Henry Minton have upon the jazz musicians he nurtures? What is the atmosphere like? How is creativity nourished?

(see the answer keys)

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