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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 type of business is Hogan's Seraglio in downtown San Narciso?

2. What does Oedipa use to fend off the advances of the manager of the Echo Courts Motel?

3. What does Metzger tell Oedipa about Beaconsfield Cigarettes?

4. What is the name of Dr. Hilarius' s face number 37, which is the face children often use for taunting?

5. On a long ago trip with Pierce Inverarity, where did Oedipa see an exhibition of paintings by Remedios Varo ?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does the manager of the Echo Courts think Oedipa is trying to seduce him?

2. What is suggested by the name of Oedipa's psychiatrist, Dr. Hilarius?

3. What is the metaphor Oedipa is referring to about The Trystero and the costumes of historical figures?

4. How is the sign advertising the Echo Courts in the likeness of Marilyn Monroe?

5. How can electronic music be performed live at The Scope bar?

6. Where did Tony Jaguar get the bones that he sold to Beaconsfield Cigarettes?

7. Why is the introduction of the Yoyodyne mail deliverer at The Scope important to the plot of The Crying of Lot 49?

8. Describe the manager of the Echo Courts Motel.

9. What was strange about Pierce Inverarity's call to Oedipa a year ago?

10. What kind of image does Funch the program director want Mucho to have at the radio station?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The Crying of Lot 49 mixes elements taken from several different genres, or types of literature. Discuss each of these in terms of its use in the novel.

1) The picaresque novel, such as Don Quixote

2) The Jacobean and Elizabethan revenge plays, such as Hamlet

3) Mythology

4) Fairytales

5) Historical texts

Essay Topic 2

Pynchon bases Oedipa Maas on the Greek Myth of Oedipus.

1) Give a synopsis of the Oedipus Myth.

2) Compare the character of Oedipa to that of Oedipus. How are their struggles similar? What larger theme is Pynchon conveying with the use of the myth?

Essay Topic 3

Oedipa's search for truth leads her to visit, along with Metzger, the Paranoids and their girlfriends, Inverarity's housing development, and Fangoso Lagoons.

1) Explain the significance of this setting to the thematic aspects of the novel.

2) Describe how the characters themselves and their actions in this scene embody certain themes of the novel.

(see the answer keys)

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