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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 does the narrator have for breakfast that is described as “so light and flaky that a fellow with any appetite at all would have no difficulty in disposing of eight or ten” in Chapter 4?

2. The narrator says in Chapter 5 that he picked up the cigar-maker’s habit of riding around in what on Sunday afternoons?

3. To whom does the narrator say he became inseparable in school in Chapter 2?

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

5. It is the narrator’s duty to bring what to the tall man with the small, dark moustache when he visits in Chapter 1?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What advice is the narrator given after his money is stolen in Chapter 4? Who helps him out?

3. Into what classes does the narrator categorize African Americans in Chapter 5?

4. How does the motif of music apply in the novel? What is the narrator’s relationship to music?

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

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

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

8. What popular dance does the narrator describe in Chapter 5? When did the dance develop?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the theme of race relations in the novel. How is racial prejudice expressed through the language of the narrator during his childhood? How does the language influence the narrator’s views of African Americans and whites? What impact does this language have on readers today?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the segregation of white and black clubs in New York during this time period in history. Were the whites who came to the black clubs ostracized? Why or why not? When were African Americans allowed into white clubs?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the narrator’s perception of personal identity when he arrives in Florida. How is his perception of the African Americans here different than in Georgia and in Connecticut? In what ways does the narrator incorporate himself into Spanish-speaking society in the South? How is he perceived by this ethnic minority?

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