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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. What does Lear help the Wife do?

2. Who suggests the workman be imprisoned rather than executed?

3. Who is NOT present in Act 1, Scene 3?

4. Who initially protests the execution of the workman at the wall?

5. Who intends to overthrow Lear in Act 1, Scene 1?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who is the Carpenter? What is revealed to Lear about this character? How does he fit into the plot?

2. How does Lear react to seeing Fontanelle's autopsy? How does this change his point of view?

3. How does Lear feel about the Duke of North and the Duke of Cornwall? Why?

4. What does Lear tell Fontanelle to do in order to be treated well? What does he tell her to refrain from?

5. Why does Lear tell Cornelia she must destroy the wall? What does he say regarding pity?

6. What is an "aside"? What purpose does it serve the author? Give an example of an aside in Lear.

7. Why is the Ghost unhappy and crying in Act 3, Scene 3?

8. How does Lear prove he has undergone a change of character in the last act?

9. What is the argument between Lear and the Gravedigger's Wife? How do these characters feel about each other?

10. Why does the Ghost stay with Lear at the end of Act 2, Scene 2?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast the characters of Lear and Cornelia. How do these characters change in the course of the play? How do their interests diverge from one another?

Essay Topic 2

Lear makes a reference in Act 3 to Christ on the cross, which contains a certain irony in that Lear eventually finds himself in a similar place to that in which Christ found himself - executed by those in authority as an example to others who would think and believe and act independently. What are other Biblical references in Lear? How can Lear (and others) be compared to Biblical figures?

Essay Topic 3

What is the climax of Lear? How does this climax reflect both the actions in the play and the thematic climax? What has been sacrificed?

(see the answer keys)

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