Kilanowski

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One:

  1. What does Johnson promise to do in the first paragraph of the novel?
  2. What does he compare the act to?
  3. Where and when was he born?
  4. Who does he live with? Who comes to visit them?
  5. What does this man give him?
  6. Where do they move?
  7. In what type of house do they live?
  8. Why does the author say, “As I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little aristocrat”?
  9. In what two ways does the narrator’s mother earn money?
  10. Describe the difference in the mother’s playing of hymns versus old Southern songs.
  11. How does the narrator first approach playing the piano and reading?
  12. Who is his first friend? Why does he gravitate toward this young man?
  13. Who is “Shiny”?
  14. How does the narrator’s mother react to his use of the word “nigger”? *****
  15. What does the narrator discover when the principal comes into his classroom? How does he handle this new information? *****

Chapter Two:

  1. How is the narrator changed by his newfound knowledge of himself? *****
  2. Besides music, what other love does the narrator develop?
  3. Why is he called an “infant prodigy”?
  4. W hat feelings does the violinist evoke in him?
  5. Who comes to visit the narrator and his mother?
  6. Why did the narrator and his mother move to Connecticut in the first place? *****

Chapter Three:

  1. What present does the narrator’s father send him?
  2. What else does he begin to study?
  3. How does reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin change him? *****
  4. What does the narrator learn about his father? *****
  5. How does Shiny’s graduation speech affect the narrator?
  6. In what ways is the narrator’s education lacking in practicality?
  7. What happens to the narrator’s mother?
  8. How does this affect his plans for the future?

Chapter Four:

  1. What are the narrator’s first impressions of the South?
  2. How does the narrator react to seeing many black people all at once? *****
  3. How is the narrator treated at the university?
  4. How is his life changed forever by the loss of his money?
  5. Describe his experience traveling in a Pullman porter’s closet?

Chapter Five:

  1. Where does the narrator go to live?
  2. Describe his first reaction to his fellow-borders.
  3. What does the narrator learn about cigar-making?
  4. What other talent does the narrator discover that he has?
  5. Describe the three classes that the narrator lumps the “colored people” into. *****
  6. How does the narrator change during his three years in Jacksonville?
  7. Who does he run into at a dance? Why is this ironic?
  8. What four things does the narrator believe the “colored people” have done to erase the notion that they are inferior? *****
  9. How does the narrator’s life change this time? Where is he headed?