View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Echo's relationship to Artie?

2. What is Artie's relationship to Dorothea?

3. Dorothea tries to _________________________ Artie.

4. What is Echo doing during scene 3?

5. What is the happy time that Dorothea recalls in her life?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Dorothea force her value of education over motherhood on Artie?

2. Artie begins and ends scene two. What do we learn about the character?

3. What is the opening action of this play, and what does this foreshadow?

4. What does Artie admit is her own neurosis?

5. Who is Artie named after and how does this name match her personality?

6. What are the basic relationships between the Westbrook women?

7. Why do you think Artie runs away instead of letting her mother send her to college?

8. What do you think the author's purpose was in having Echo spelling heard between Dorothea's recollections?

9. Why does Artie feel her ability to remember everything is an inconvenience?

10. In scene 1, Dorothea has had a stroke and is rendered mute. Why do you think Echo insists she can hear Dorothea?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Character names are very important in this play and have a kind of "self-fulfilling prophesy". Discuss how this is especially true for Artie. Give examples from the text to support your thoughts.

Essay Topic 2

At some points in the play, Artie seems to have freed herself of her past and becomes a successful, functioning, happy individual. At what point is this true, and which events turn her life back around into the character she again becomes at the end of the play?

Essay Topic 3

When Dorothea is in a coma, Artie and Echo fight about whether or not there is any value in interacting with Dorothea. Artie believes that Dorothea is nothing more than a vegetable. Echo believes she is still a person with feelings. Why do you think the characters are acting as they are? Use examples from the play to explain their actions.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 728 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample