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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. Mr. Thoth pulls a gold signet ring with the ________ symbol out of his knitting bag, which he says his grandfather cut from the finger of an Indian he had killed.
2. After arriving at Dr. Hilarius's clinic, Oedipa is told what by the doctor's assistant?
3. What is the name of the religious splinter group Bortz attributes to changing the pornographic version of the play?
4. Oedipa pieces together an account of how the Tristero organization began in what year?
5. Stanley Koteks tells Oedipa ________________ is a "symptom of the gutlessness of the whole society."
Short Essay Questions
1. What does the historical marker that Oedipa remembers seeing at Fangoso Lagoons commemorate?
2. Bortz hands Oedipa an ancient book about the Italian travels of Dr. Diocletian Blobb. What does this story have to do with the Trystero?
3. What is the story behind the founding of Inamorati Anonymous?
4. When Oedipa visits Vesperhaven House, what does Mr. Thoth tell her about his dream?
5. Why does Oedipa consider her job as co-executor to be similar to Driblette's job as director of a play?
6. What connection does Oedipa make between the old German stamp with Thurn and Taxis printed on it which has a post horn, resembling the WASTE symbol, in each corner and the scene from The Courier's Tragedy?
7. Give examples of individuals with the post horn symbol who are somehow alienated from society.
8. At the end of Chapter 4, Genghis Cohen explains to Oedipa that the dandelion wine is clear now, but becomes cloudy in the spring when the dandelions begin to bloom, as if the dandelions in the wine remembered. What does Oedipa muse about this?
9. What are the four alternatives Oedipa comes up with to explain her discoveries concerning the Tristero?
10. Oedipa discovers that the line from Driblette's version in Plays of Ford, Webster, Tourneur and Wharfinger about Trystero was replaced by another referring to what?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
The presence of numerous male characters in the narrative who are unable to truly love Oedipa alludes to Freud's theory of the Oedipal complex.
1) Explain Freud's theory and how it relates to The Crying of Lot 49.
3) Show specifically what each of these male characters represents to Oedipa and how they abandon her: Metzger, Driblette and Mucho.
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
Oedipa's husband is named Mucho Maas, an approximation to the Spanish phrase 'mucho mas,' or 'much more.' What does this suggest the character of Mucho represents in the novel? Give specific examples of how this is shown throughout The Crying of Lot 49.
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This section contains 1,064 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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