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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. Why does Ellison reject the "hard-boiled" novel style of writing?

2. How does Ellison describe the philosopher Kierkegaard in the "Stephen Crane.." essay?

3. What Greek myth does Ellison refer to in "Brave Words?"

4. How does Ellison describe his boyhood experience in Oklahoma?

5. How many children are in Stephen Crane's birth family?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Ellison compare Wright's personal journey of blooming to?

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

3. Why was the young Ellison drawn to reading?

4. What is Ellison's basic quarrel with Hyman?

5. Where do Ellison and Hyman divide in their understanding of black face minstrel performance?

6. What is the "hidden name" Ellison is referring in the title of his speech to the Library of Congress in 1064?

7. What was Ellison's writing process for "Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke?"

8. Why does Ellison consider Stephen Crane to be such a great artist?

9. Ellison originally wanted to be a musician. What changed for him?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In "Hidden Name and Complex Fate" Ellison reveals that it was his father, who died when Ellison was three years old, who chose for him the name of a famous white poet and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and in doing so cast upon him a complex fate. What was that fate and how did it slowly reveal itself through Ellison's life? Why was it such a struggle to come to peace with? Why was it such a blessing and a curse?

Essay Topic 2

The final essay in the book was never published. It is a book review of the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal who was brought in by the Carnegie Foundation to study the "Negro problem." What is Ellison's primary reaction to the book? What is positive in Myrdal's assessment? What does Ellison object to? Why do you think the review was never published?

Essay Topic 3

"Richard Wright's Blues" explores the history of southern Negro culture. What was the atmosphere Wright grew up in? What would he have been afraid of? Where did the violence, especially the beating and punishment from Negro parents upon their children, come from? How did this environment affect the young Wright? If he had stayed in the south would he have bloomed into the writer and thinker that he did? What did Ellison think about the chances of that happening?

(see the answer keys)

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