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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. When Eric and Toby meet at a bar, what does Toby confess to Eric?

2. How does Toby die?

3. How many men does the caretaker tell Eric are buried at the farmhouse?

4. What does the caretaker tell Eric about his possessions?

5. What symptoms of meth use has Leo developed by Act Two, Scene Four?

Short Essay Questions

1. What course does Eric's life take after Toby's death?

2. What happens as soon as Toby gets back to his apartment after he visits his agent?

3. When Toby and Leo are reunited, how does Toby initially react to Leo's desperate situation, and what changes Toby's attitude?

4. What belief does Eric express in an attempt to resolve the political disagreement between Henry and his friends?

5. What does the farmhouse caretaker say is the reason that so many gay men died during the AIDS epidemic?

6. When Leo wakes up next to the stranger in Act Two, Scene Four, what does he choose to steal from the man, and why?

7. After Eric's friends leave Henry's townhouse, what does Eric ask Henry about the rest of the evening, and what is consequently revealed about Henry's intentions for their marriage?

8. How does Toby's agent react to his new play?

9. In what sense does Toby re-enact his relationship with Eric through his relationship with Leo?

10. How does Henry's real reason for refusing sexual intimacy with Eric contrast with the reason he gave Eric at the beginning of their relationship?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What claims is The Inheritance making about cultural appropriation from the gay community? How does this relate to the part of the play's plot in which Henry and his children try to keep Eric from inheriting what Walter wanted to bequeath him? Why do Eric's and Walter's individual personalities, ages, and beliefs matter in understanding this relationship? How does the class status of Henry and his children mimic the power dynamic between the larger community and the gay community? Write an essay in which you show how the plot regarding the farmhouse illuminates the text's concerns regarding cultural appropriation. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

Essay Topic 2

How much of a hero is Eric, really? In Part One of the play, other characters repeatedly comment about what an extraordinary person Eric is, even if he does not think so, himself. Then, in Part Two, Act Two, Lopez deliberately structures the action to create great sympathy for Leo, to show how most people marginalize him, and to cast Eric in the role of Leo's savior. When Eric finally makes his decision about the farmhouse at the end of Part Two, Act Two, he is in effect becoming the text's next "Walter." But can a countervailing argument be made that Eric has lived a life of privilege, talked a great deal about responsibility and sacrifice, and done little to back up his grand ideas with action until relatively late in life? How do Tristan and Jasper evaluate Eric's actions? How does Toby? Are their criticisms evidence that they are just bad judges of character, or is there merit to their claims? Write an essay in which you analyze how Lopez intends to depict Eric and then comment on the merits of that depiction in light of the text's messages about responsibility to the community. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

Essay Topic 3

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.

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