Assignment Test-PrepSlides

Assignment Test-Prep
Ellison’s Invisible Man

 Hatfield:
Surnames beginning with A-M: Thuto 1.1
Surnames beginning with N-Z Thutho 1.2
Test Venues  Groenkloof:

Surnames beginning with A-J: Aldoel 1
Surnames beginning with K-N: Aldoel 2
Surnames beginning with O-Z: Aldoel 3
 Read the novel (and re-read passages that were
highlighted in lectures).
 Look at lecture notes to see what was emphasised
How to in lectures (these will likely form the basis of a
Prepare test/assignment question)
 Take passages/chapter from the novel and write a
critical analysis.
Quizz Questions:
The novel’s protagonist declares that he is invisible. What does he mean?
a. He does not exist.

b. He is a phantom.
c. He is not seen.
What are the implications for the way in
which the novel represents reality?
a. Reality is not unitary

but multi-faceted.
b. Reality exists
independently, ‘out
there’.
c. Reality is constructed.
Which of the following are true of the picaresque
form?
a. The novel is episodic.
b. The novel is non-linear.
c. The protagonist is a
rogue.
d. The protagonist is
assailed by hostile forces.
e. The protagonist
undergoes a process of
growth and development.
f. The novel is satirical
Which of the following options best describes
Invisible Man?
a. A bildungsroman
b. A picaresque novel
c. A novel that draws on
the picaresque and the
bildungsroman
d. An allegory
What are some of the possible meanings of
the ‘black sambo’ figure?
a. A humble and affectionate

character
b. A character with a happy-
go-lucky temperament
c. A violent character
d. A character who is
obsequious and
ingratiating
e. A dignified character
Which of the following could be described as
important motifs in the novel?
a. a mechanical man
b. a quilt
c. a tapestry
d. a dancing doll
e. a marble statue
f. a zombie
Which of the following best describes the notion
of ‘signifyin’’?
a. Word play and double

entendre
b. Verbal ‘sparring’
c. Plain speech
d. Call and response
Which of the characters act as warning
figures in the novel?
a. Mr Barbee
b. Invisible’s grandfather
c. The veteran soldier
d. Emerson’s son
e. Brother Jack
f. Brother Westrum
g. Pete Wheatstraw
Which of the following statements is true of Invisible
Man?
a. The novel incorporates examples of black vernacular
culture & philosophy
b. The novel retrieves a hidden history of white violence
and black trauma
c. The novel offers a meditation on the processes of
history writing
d. The novel advances an argument about black
invisibility and white blindness
e. Invisible Man is blind to the invisibility of women
 Written in the form of an essay: Introduction, Body, Conclusion
 Includes references in the body of the essay
1. from the text (How do I reference the novel if my edition is
What is an
different?)
2. from Secondary Sources (How do I reference secondary
Assignment sources?)
 As essay presents an ARGUMENT
Test?  An essay includes a reference section
 Time management: About half an hour on planning and
preparation (sourcing useful quotations), 1 hour and 45 min
writing and 15 mins editing.
 Errors to be neatly crossed out and correcting.
 Recommended Length 4-6 (handwritten pages).
Invisibility, let me explain, gives you a slightly
different sense of time, you’re never quite on the
beat. Sometimes you’re ahead and sometimes
Quoting you’re behind. Instead of the swift and

imperceptible flowing of time, you are aware of its
from the nodes, those points where time stands still or from
which it leaps ahead. And you slip into the breaks
text and look around (Ellison 2016: 8).
 Depicting the journey from youth to maturity, a classic
Bildungsroman concentrates on a protagonist striving to reconcile
individual aspirations with the demands of social conformity
(Graham 2019: 3).
 ‘After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and
Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and
Practice gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which

yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see
Quoting and himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a

peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of
Referencing always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring
one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt
and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro;
two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two
warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone
keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro
is the history of this strife…’ (du Bois 2022: 2-3).
W.E.B. Du Bois. The Souls of Black Folks (1903)
Depicting the journey from youth to maturity, a
classic Bildungsroman concentrates on a protagonist
striving to reconcile individual aspirations with the
demands of social conformity (Graham 2019: 3).
Practice Use this quotation as a starting point to discuss the

ways in which Ellison’s Invisible Man draws on and
Question rewrites the Bildungsroman form.

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Assignment Test-Prep

Ellison’s Invisible Man

Test Venues  Groenkloof:

The novel’s protagonist declares that he is invisible. What does he mean?

a. He does not exist.

a. Reality is not unitary

a. A humble and affectionate

a. Word play and double

Quoting you’re behind. Instead of the swift and

Practice gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which

Quoting and himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a

Practice Use this quotation as a starting point to discuss the

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