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

2. Ellison says Hemingway sought technical perfection rather than what?

3. Why does Ellison's family live in a middle class white neighborhood in Oklahoma City?

4. What is the Negro child taught to see the white man as?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What is Ellison's basic quarrel with Hyman?

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

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

6. Why was the young Ellison drawn to reading?

7. What does the second half of the title "Hidden Names and Complex Fate" refer to?

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Why does Ellison choose "The Shadow and the Act" as the title of the entire book? What is the theme which this film review contains that Ellison finds suitable to place the entire set of writings within? What framework does this title provide for the other essays, articles, speeches, interviews and stories?

Essay Topic 3

"The Way It Is" is the earliest example of Ellison's writing which appears in "Shadow and Act." In what ways is it different from the other essays? Do you see the beginnings of Ellison's philosophy and understanding it? If no dates were show, do you think it would have been clear that this was an early work? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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