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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. Why are slaves able to express themselves in art?
2. What is remarkable about the psychiatric staff?
3. What do the three sections of "Invisible Man" represent?
4. Where does Charlie Parker die?
5. What is Ellison's reaction to the term "Negro culture?"
Short Essay Questions
1. What is the film "Intruder in the Dust" about?
2. Where is the Lefargue Psychiatric Clinic located?
3. What was Jackson's early life like?
4. In the Paris Review (Spring 1955) Ellison was interviewed about his work as a writer. What does he say his first piece of professional writing was?
5. When asked when he began "Invisible Man" what does Ellison answer?
6. Where is "Minton's Playhouse" located?
7. What does the "drunk of legend" who lives on the corner do?
8. What does the mural above the bandstand at Minton's depict?
9. What experience in Ellison's childhood gives him patience with his upstairs singing neighbor?
10. What does Ellison tell us about the matriarch, Mrs. Jackson, in "The Way It Is."
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
In the essay about Twentieth Century Fiction Ellison is sharply critical of Hemingway. What is it that Hemingway lacks which disappoints Ellison so much? Is his criticism solely of Hemingway or is Ellison critiquing a generation of writers? What changes in the twenty century after World War I? Why does the Negro character disappear? What is Ellison's final conclusion in reference to Hemingway and his technical brilliance?
Essay Topic 2
"The World and the Jug" is an angry, often humorous response to the white, northern liberal writer Irving Howe's article about Richard Wright, James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison. What is Ellison's primary anger towards Howe based in? What pattern does he believe Howe has fallen into that is so similar to the discriminatory patterns against Negroes in America in general? What does Ellison argue that Howe is continuing when it comes to understanding the relationship between Negro and white culture?
Essay Topic 3
In "Living with Music" Ellison literally finds himself overwhelmed by the group of people who live around him. His struggle to find his own peace within a larger and very noisy society is a metaphor for the way he sees the individual constantly struggling against the group in life. How does he find peace? What method does he use to carve out his space and literally "be heard?"
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This section contains 856 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) |
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