Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Study Questions
Chapter
1
1.
Why does the narrator say he is divulging his "secret"?
2.
Explain what the narrator means when he says "As I look back now I can see
that I was a perfect little aristocrat."
3.
What early skill does the narrator develop?
4.
How does the narrator befriend “Red”?
5.
Why does the teacher use the technique she does to "out" the narrator
as a "black"?
Chapter
2
6.
What is the "distorting influence which operates upon each and every
coloured man in the United States"(556)?
7.
Why would, as the narrator says, blacks understand whites better than whites
would understand blacks?
8.
What does the narrator think about the Bible?
What
disappoints him about Jesus when he reads the New Testament? (Remember that he
is only twelve at the time.)
9.
Who is the narrator's father? How does meeting him help the narrator
communicate better with his mother?
10.
What does he mean when he says that his father "was all to us that custom
and the law would allow"?
Chapter 3
10. What gift does the
narrator’s father send him?
11. What does the narrator
admire about Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Why
is it important to him?
12. What does the narrator
think about Shiny’s grammar school graduation speech?
13. Why does the narrator decide to go to Atlanta University instead of
Harvard? How, if at all, does his mother's death affect this decision?
Ch.
4
14.
What is his initial reaction to the South and the blacks he first meets there?
15.
Explain: "The ability to laugh heartily is, in part, the salvation of the
American Negro; it does much to keep him from going the way of the Indian"
(566).
16.
What does it mean to "register" at the university? Why must he do it?
17. What unfortunate event
dashes the narrator’s hopes of going to Atlanta University? Who do you think is
the likeliest suspect?
18. Where does the narrator
go for employment, and what employment does he hope to find?
Ch. 5
19. What employment does
the narrator actually find?
20.
What are the three classes of blacks, according to the narrator? Explain the
relationship each class experiences with the whites.
21. What is a cakewalk, and how does the narrator feel about it?
Ch.
6
22.
Why does the narrator move North again?
23.
What four things demonstrate to the narrator that blacks have "originality
and artistic conception"?
24. To what type of
gambling is the narrator attracted? Why?
25. Why are some men
dressed only in linen dusters (overcoats or robes)?
26.
What is significant, according to the narrator, about the development of
ragtime?
Ch. 7
27. List five things the
narrator describes about the “Club.”
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Ch. 8
28. What benefits does the narrator receive from mastering ragtime?
29. Describe the narrator’s
relationship with the millionaire?
30. Why does the narrator go to Europe with the millionaire?
Ch. 9
31. How does the narrator
pay for French lessons?
32. Why does he get drunk after seeing his half-sister at the opera with his
father?
33. Explain: "Paris practices its sins as lightly as it does its
religion, while London practices both very seriously.”
34.
Why, according to the millionaire, would it be a handicap to work as a
"negro composer"?
35. Why does the millionaire believe that, "I can imagine no more
dissatisfied human being than an educated, cultured, and refined coloured man
in the United States"?
Ch.
10
36.
Explain this reference to the race question: "The greater portion of the
race is unconscious of its [the color question’s] influence."
37.
Why, does the narrator suggest, do blacks tend to marry lighter-skinned blacks?
38. Why does the narrator head South upon his return to the States?
39. According to the Northerner in the smoker car, what have Anglo-Saxons
"done," i.e. contributed to humanity?
40. What about the Texan’s
point of view makes the narrator say, "The
main difficulty with the race question does not lie so much in the actual
condition of blacks as it does in the mental attitude of whites" (597).
41.
Why
do lazy blacks create the longest-lasting impressions of the race?
598:
Explain:
"The claim of the Southern whites that they love the Negro better than the
Northern whites do is in a manner true" (598).
602:
Why
do educated blacks at this time feel ashamed of the old slave songs?
Why
does the lynching make the narrator feel ashamed? How is his reaction related
to that of the educated blacks encountering old slave songs?
How
is New York "like a great witch at the gate of the country"(575)?
How
is New York like opium?
585:
Why
does the narrator decide to become a linguist?
Why
does the narrator respect the racist white Southerner?
How
does meeting his future wife make passing less of a "joke" to him?
How
does seeing Shiny give the narrator the resolve to "come out" to his
beloved?
What
is the reference in the final line: "I have sold my birthright for a mess
of pottage" (610)?
