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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. Who is Stephen Crane?

2. Why does Oklahoma hold some freedom and equality for Negroes at the time Ellison lived there?

3. Violence is inflicted upon Wright by family, friends, and society as a whole. What is his response?

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

5. What does Ellison praise about "Primer for White Folks?"

Short Essay Questions

1. What were some of the catastrophic events which occurred in Wright's life?

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

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

4. Why does Ellison choose to write about Faulkner?

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

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

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

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

9. Did Richard Wright influence Baldwin or Ellison?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

In "The Art of Fiction: An Interview" Ellison explores the relationship between art and protest. What does Ellison believe, for him, writing fiction is? Is social comment or protest part of his work at all? If so, how does he see his particular style of writing as contributing to positive social change?

Essay Topic 3

In "Hidden Name and Complex Fate" Ellison reveals that it was his father, who died when Ellison was three years old, who chose for him the name of a famous white poet and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and in doing so cast upon him a complex fate. What was that fate and how did it slowly reveal itself through Ellison's life? Why was it such a struggle to come to peace with? Why was it such a blessing and a curse?

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