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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. In a letter from a legal firm, what does Pierce Inverarity request Oedipa do for him?
2. What is the current occupation of the actor who is playing Metzger in the TV pilot?
3. What is on the island in the middle of the artificial lake at Fangoso Lagoons?
4. What does Funch, Mucho's boss, tell Mucho he is going to do in the first chapter of the novel?
5. What are the members of Mike Fallopian's group required to do each week?
Short Essay Questions
1. Describe the manager of the Echo Courts Motel.
2. In his phone call to Oedipa a year ago, what did Pierce Inverarity say about Mucho?
3. What is Mike Fallopian trying to prove in his history of private mail delivery in the U.S.?
4. Why is Di Presso hiding in a boat at Fangoso Lagoons to avoid his client?
5. When did Pierce Inverarity die?
6. As she is losing the game of Strip Botticelli, what does Oedipa remove first?
7. As Oedipa seeks a motel to escape the illusion of speed and freedom that driving provides, to what does she compare the road?
8. Where did Tony Jaguar get the bones that he sold to Beaconsfield Cigarettes?
9. What do the Paranoids set outside the door of Oedipa's room?
10. What was strange about Pierce Inverarity's call to Oedipa a year ago?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
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 2
The possible crime related to Inverarity's estate, the use of GI bones, is coupled to a Jacobean play about crimes also set in Italy, The Courier's Tragedy. Discuss how the themes of the novel are echoed in the play, as well as referencing the literary significance of Pynchon's use of a play-within-a-play.
Essay Topic 3
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
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This section contains 657 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) |
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