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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. When does Jones place the beginnings of the blues?

2. Who are the two main characters in "Intruder in the Dust?"

3. What falls on Ellison and his wife while they sleep?

4. Where is Minton's located?

5. What race of people are allowed into Minton's?

Short Essay Questions

1. What captures the attention of many critics about "Blues People."

2. What does Ellison say about a Negro President?

3. What are the two categories Jones places the blues in?

4. Why does Ellison disagree with Jones when he says "A slave cannot be a man"?

5. Who does the song "They picked poor robin clean" remind Ellison of?

6. What does Ellison tell us about the matriarch, Mrs. Jackson, in "The Way It Is."

7. Who is Teddy Hill?

8. What does the "drunk of legend" who lives on the corner do?

9. What does Ellison understand the term "Negro culture" to mean?

10. What type of music does the upstairs singer practice all day?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the film review "The Shadow and the Act" Ellison criticizes Hollywood's portrayal of Negro Americans as "Shadow," by which he means illusion. The act refers to reality, what truly is, which Hollywood shows little interest in revealing. Describe Ellison's theory and show how he uses the example of film to reveal what is for him an overall American habit of focusing on illusion rather than reality.

Essay Topic 2

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?"

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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This section contains 815 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample