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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. Where is Cherry Grove?
2. Who does Eric try to call as soon as Henry leaves for his business trip?
3. What is revealed by Toby's Part Two, Act One, Scene Three call to his agent?
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. What symptoms of meth use has Leo developed by Act Two, Scene Four?
Short Essay Questions
1. How does Leo learn that he is HIV-positive?
2. How does Toby's agent react to his new play?
3. What is ironic about Henry's comments about giving the farmhouse to Walter during the reenacted scene between Young Henry and Young Walter in Act Two, Scene Two?
4. What causes Leo to think of HIV as "A bitter inheritance," and what is the significance of this diction (239)?
5. In Part Two, Act One's flashback to Young Henry and Young Walter first encountering the farmhouse, how do the two men's reactions differ?
6. What happens as soon as Toby gets back to his apartment after he visits his agent?
7. What does the farmhouse caretaker say is the reason that so many gay men died during the AIDS epidemic?
8. What does Henry's vague communication about Eric's belongings cause to happen at the farmhouse?
9. How did the move to a new state and new school impact Toby's self-image, and why?
10. What revelations about Leo's childhood occur in Act Two, Scene Four?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Do some online research into the Brechtian theater technique of Verfremdungseffekt, or "Distancing Effect." What is this technique, and what is its purpose? What does it have to do with Lopez's use of characters who seem to be both present and not present in certain scenes? Write an essay that explains this technique and its purposes and then shows how Lopez uses it when he creates scenes where characters are not literally present but can still interact with the action onstage. Finally, offer insight into Lopez's purpose in distancing his audiences from his characters in this way. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.
Essay Topic 2
In what sense are Toby's and Walter's experiences with Eric and Henry examples of "Cinderella" stories? Why is Eric's rescue of Leo a thematically important counter-example to these instances of being rescued by a romantic partner? Does the text contain any other strong examples of the gay community working together to educate, nurture, and guide younger gay men, or are other examples of this kind of mentorship in the text simply the natural outcome of individual friendships and romantic partnership? What is the evidence for Eric's assertion that the gay community has historically provided this kind of mentorship? Write an essay in which you consider the strength of textual evidence for Eric's beliefs about the importance of the community passing cultural information and guidance from generation to generation. 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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This section contains 1,365 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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