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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 described as was “fierce, eloquent and profane in his argument and, in a lower sense, there was a direct logic in what he said, which was convincing” in Chapter 10?

2. What character in the book is killed at the end of Chapter 8?

3. What word from Chapter 7 means a frequent visitor to a place?

4. What animal does the narrator look for on the iceberg in Chapter 9?

5. The narrator quotes an African American man as once having said, “"It's no disgrace to be black, but it's often very” what?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are the parties thrown by the millionaire described by the narrator in the novel?

2. How does the narrative distinguish the differences between the North and South regarding race relations?

3. How does the narrator describe the success of the Chinese restaurant under the “Club” in Chapter 7?

4. With whom does the narrator form a friendship on the ship to Boston in Chapter 10? What do they discuss?

5. Whom does the narrator spot at the opera in Chapter 9? What is his reaction?

6. How did the author incorporate slave narratives in his descriptions of the South in Chapter 10?

7. What musical style does the narrator describe in depth in Chapter 5? When did this style emerge?

8. What does the narrator get in exchange for his work for the millionaire in Europe? What are his impressions of the continent?

9. What does the narrator do upon arriving in New York in Chapter 6?

10. What are the narrator’s impressions of the African Americans he meets in the rural South in Chapter 10?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

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 3

Discuss the history of segregation in the South, and particularly in Georgia. When were the Jim Crow laws enacted? When were they repealed? How did these laws influence society in the South? What segregation does the narrator experience before going to the South?

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