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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. Which word best describes Eric's attitude toward Adam?

2. Where does Adam's bathhouse story take place?

3. In Act Two, Scene One, what does Adam say that first makes Toby express a desire to leave Adam's apartment?

4. Which statistician is mentioned frequently in Act Two?

5. Where is the apartment that Henry offers Eric located?

Short Essay Questions

1. During Eric's birthday brunch, how does Jason 1 turn a nostalgic conversation about the past into a conversation about future goals?

2. How does Eric come to live in such a nice apartment, and what issue is he facing with this apartment in Act One?

3. What is ironic about Jason 2's question to Walter about whether Walter worries about what will happen if Henry dies first?

4. Who is Tom Durrell, and how does he become significant in the Act Three, Scene One conversation between Toby and Adam?

5. Why is the night of November 8, 2016 thematically significant?

6. During their argument in Act Two, Scene Three, what does Eric have to say about Toby's writing?

7. How do their differing responses to the AIDS crisis illustrate something fundamentally different about Walter and Henry?

8. In the hallway after brunch, when Eric tries to be self-deprecating after Walter compliments him, how does Walter respond?

9. What secret does Morgan say Eric is keeping from everyone, and what is Morgan's belief about this secret?

10. How does Toby embarrass himself when he is staying at Henry Wilcox's house?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How effectively does Lopez use dramatic tension to keep the reader engaged? As you read the play, do you feel invested in knowing how obstacles will be overcome and whether the characters will achieve their goals? Do you eagerly push forward to find answers to questions that Lopez creates and see how characters will resolve their conflicts? How does the metatheatrical nature of the play interact with its dramatic tension? How do the commentary and actions of the Young Men and Morgan heighten or diffuse dramatic tension? Does the play's humor heighten or diffuse its dramatic tension? Choose a single act of the play, from either of the play's two parts, and write an essay that explicates and evaluates Lopez's use of dramatic tension in that act.

Essay Topic 2

What larger ideas about community and responsibility does the farmhouse represent? Why does its location matter? How do its owners' histories support the ideas it represents? How do Walter's and Henry's varying responses to the farmhouse relate to the farmhouse's meaning? Why does Henry frustrate Walter's plan to leave the house to Eric, and why does he discourage Eric from spending time at the farmhouse? What do the ghosts signify? What does the figure of the caretaker add to the reader's understanding of the house's meaning? What does Eric eventually choose to do with the farmhouse, and how does this confirm the meaning of the house? Write an essay in which you take and defend a position on the meaning of the farmhouse and its relationship to the play's concern with responsibility to community. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

Essay Topic 3

How do the life experiences of the younger generation portrayed in The Inheritance differ from the life experiences of older men like Walter and Henry? How has this impacted their understanding of themselves and the wider gay community in New York? How does this understanding of community impact their behavior and choices? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about how the lived experiences of the older and younger generations in this play impact their relationship to the gay community and their own identity as gay men. Show how this difference illuminates the larger meaning of the play. Support your ideas with evidence drawn from throughout the play.

(see the answer keys)

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