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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. The landlady and her husband at the boarding house tell the narrator that the big winter hotels would not open within how much time in the beginning of Chapter 5?

2. How old is the narrator when his mother decides to enter him into public school?

3. Who does the narrator say stood at the head of his list of heroes for a long time in Chapter 2?

4. What is the Pullman car porter wearing when the narrator encounters him at a ball in Chapter 5?

5. According to the narrator in Chapter 2, the two immediate results of his “forced loneliness” were finding company in books and greater pleasure in what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is early education like for the narrator? When does he enter public school and how is this setting described?

2. Where does the narrator hide his money at the rooming house in Chapter 4? Where does he go after this?

3. To whom were African American narratives during the Reconstruction Era generally addressed? Why?

4. Where did James Weldon Johnson attend university? How is this institution described?

5. What event takes place informing the narrator of his ethnic heritage in his early years? How does he react to the information?

6. What does the narrator discover when he encounters the porter at a dance in Chapter 5?

7. How does dramatic irony relate to The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man?

8. How is the second Pullman car porter described by the narrator in Chapter 4?

9. What elements does the novel share with the Realist Movement in literary style?

10. Who is the narrator’s guide when he first arrives in Atlanta in Chapter 4? What are the narrator’s impressions of the city?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the setting of Jacksonville, Florida, in the narrative. Why does the porter suggest that the narrator go to Jacksonville to find work? How did the segregation laws differ in Florida than Georgia during this time period? How does the narrator travel to Jacksonville?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the author of the book and its genre. Why did James Weldon Johnson choose to use the term “autobiography” in the work’s title? Why was it initially published with an anonymous author? When was it republished with the author’s name? Why?

Essay Topic 3

Define and identify foreshadowing in the narrative. How does the author effectively use foreshadowing in Chapter 4 to indicate that something may go wrong with the narrator’s money? What is foreshadowed regarding the narrator’s future and education in this chapter? How does the narrator respond to his situation at the end of Chapter 4?

(see the answer keys)

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