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Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. Who is on the beach with Leo in the opening of Part Two, Act Two?
2. What does the doorman tell Leo not to touch in Toby's apartment?
3. When Eric and Toby meet at a bar, what does Toby confess to Eric?
4. How much time elapses between when Eric and Leo run into one another at Toby's apartment and the scene where Leo wakes up next to a man he does not know?
5. When does the opening of Part Two, Act Two take place?
Short Essay Questions
1. How did Henry's fear during the AIDS epidemic end up robbing him of his ability to truly love another man?
2. What does Henry's vague communication about Eric's belongings cause to happen at the farmhouse?
3. What does the farmhouse caretaker say is the reason that so many gay men died during the AIDS epidemic?
4. How does Tristan latch onto a metaphor Eric proposes and turn it into a critique of a particular politician?
5. How does Leo learn that he is HIV-positive?
6. What belief does Eric express in an attempt to resolve the political disagreement between Henry and his friends?
7. What leads Toby to write his second play?
8. What regrets did Michael's mother have about his death, and what did she do to ease her conscience?
9. What revelations about Leo's childhood occur in Act Two, Scene Four?
10. What is the subtext of Adam and Toby's argument about the new line Toby has added to the play?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
What messages about understanding the self does this play convey? Consider both Toby and Eric: how well do they understand themselves at the play's outset? How does their lack of understanding impact both themselves and others? What kinds of events spur them to greater understanding of themselves? How do differences in their underlying characters either accelerate or delay their arrival at a state of greater self-awareness? How does this change in them impact their happiness and their contribution to the world around them? Write an essay in which you take and defend a position about the play's message about understanding oneself, particularly as manifested in the growth and change of Eric and Toby. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.
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
Now that you have finished the play, you have seen the Young Men both take part in and comment on the play's action in a variety of ways. What does it mean that they are both characters and narrators in this play? What does it mean that many of them play several different characters? Which play only one character, and what is the significance of this? Why are they initially identified as "Young Men" rather than "Chorus" or some other term? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about the significance of the Young Men to the play's overall meaning. Defend your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the play. If you use outside sources, be sure to cite these in MLA format.
This section contains 1,340 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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