View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What Bible myth is referred to in "The World and the Jug?"
(a) Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
(b) Garden of Eden.
(c) Baby Moses and the Pharaoh's daughter.
(d) Noah, Ham, Shem and Japheth.

2. As a child what is Wright unable to distinguish between?
(a) When to be quiet and when to speak.
(b) His fair-skinned grandmother and the white women of the town.
(c) Day and night.
(d) Right and Wrong.

3. In the essay "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke" what does Ellison say black face allows white America to do?
(a) Avoid looking at the shallowness of white American culture.
(b) See the Negro story from a different perspective.
(c) Laugh and forget about its troubles and woes.
(d) Pour out its hatred and fear in a theatrical form.

4. Who is Stanley Edgar Hyman?
(a) Ellison's uncle who has a good sense of humor.
(b) A lyricist and comedian in the 1930's.
(c) The prominent Negro intellectual who wrote "Santa Claus is Black."
(d) A scholar who wrote on the relationship between Negro literature and folklore.

5. What is the origin of the essay "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke?"
(a) "Invisible Man."
(b) Letter written by Ellison when he was living in Rome to an old friend.
(c) Treatise on the folk art of tying knots.
(d) Short story about lynching.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Ellison say civil wars are fought?

2. What is the relationship between Ellison and Stanley Hyman?

3. Why does Ellison choose to analyze William Falkner?

4. Where does Ellison give the public address "Hidden Name and Complex Fate?"

5. What is the Negro child taught to see the white man as?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the Negro say when white America holds up twentieth century fiction and say "this is the American reality?"

2. Did Richard Wright influence Baldwin or Ellison?

3. What is the difference between the way Hyman and Ellison view "the darky" entertainer?

4. Who was it that suggested to Ellison that he review a book and write a short story?

5. What were the two greatest influences upon Crane's life, in Ellison's estimation?

6. What does Ellison find so remarkable about Crane?

7. Why does Ellison choose to write about Faulkner?

8. When Ellison accepts the American National Book Award for "The Invisible Man" what does he say that the award is recognizing?

9. As a child Ellison imagined himself as a "Renaissance man." What does that mean?

10. In "Richard Wright's blues" how does Ellison describe the blues?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,052 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample