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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Part 1, The Seer and the Seen, Section 5.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Other white cultures have black face type entertainment, but what is different about American black face?
(a) American black face is performed by Negro actors only.
(b) American black face is always light and fun.
(c) The American history of inclusive entertainment makes it acceptable.
(d) The American history of slavery makes it a "ritual of exorcism."

2. For Ellison a primary difference between Twain and Hemingway is what?
(a) Hemingway writes about his own personal myth and Twain writes about the national myth.
(b) Twain was trained in writing and Hemingway was not.
(c) Twain was an abolitionist and Hemingway was a prohibitionists.
(d) Twain was creative and Hemingway factual.

3. As a child what do Ellison and his boyhood friends believe they are to do?
(a) They were doomed to hard manual labor and suffering.
(b) Be whoever they would and could be.
(c) Negros had no chance of doing anything interesting in life.
(d) Negros could never equal the lives of white Americans.

4. Where is the essay "Stephen Crane and the Mainstream of American Fiction" published?
(a) As an introduction to "The Red Badge of Courage" 1960 printing.
(b) In the Harvard Review of Literature, 1950.
(c) It was never published.
(d) In the Atlantic Monthly.

5. Where and when is the essay "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke" published?
(a) Partisan Review, Spring 1958.
(b) New Yorker Magazine, Summer, 1959.
(c) Life Magazine, Summer, 1958.
(d) Yale Literary Review, Winter, 1960.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Ellison what does the term "the grays" mean?

2. Violence is inflicted upon Wright by family, friends, and society as a whole. What is his response?

3. Who is Stanley Hyman's favorite archetypal figure?

4. Why does Oklahoma hold some freedom and equality for Negroes at the time Ellison lived there?

5. What is dangerous and different about Wright's attitude?

(see the answer key)

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