View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What scientific rule does the Nefastis Machine violate?

2. As Oedipa sits in the apartment in Berkeley concentrating and awaiting the demon's message, what is on the TV?

3. Who answers the phone when Oedipa tries to call Driblette from her motel room in Chapter 6?

4. Oedipa, accompanied by Bortz and the graduate students, attends the funeral and tries to reach out to some remaining trace of life in the grave in a similar fashion to what?

5. Oedipa returns to Echo Courts to find the Paranoids in shock because _________ ran off with one of their girlfriends.

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the four alternatives Oedipa comes up with to explain her discoveries concerning the Tristero?

2. 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?

3. What causes Oedipa to realize that every source of information on the Tristero can somehow be traced to Inverarity?

4. Inamorati Anonymous' association to the muted post horn symbol seems purely accidental, yet what are some similarities this group has to the Tristero?

5. 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?

6. Bortz hands Oedipa an ancient book about the Italian travels of Dr. Diocletian Blobb. What does this story have to do with the Trystero?

7. What is significant about the fact that the founder of Tristero, Hernando Joaquin de Tristero y Calavera, called himself The Disinherited?

8. When Oedipa and Metzger go back to The Scope in Chapter 4, Mike Fallopian explains that there exists what kind of underground group?

9. As Oedipa sits in rush hour traffic on the Bay Bridge, what does she determine she knows about Tristero?

10. Why does Nefastis contend that only a sensitive person can work his machine?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss how Chapter 4 of The Crying of Lot 49 shows Oedipa involved in a process of meaning creation. Give at least four specific examples from events in the chapter.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the function of language and its ability or inability to convey truth as a central thematic strand of the novel. How is this theme intertwined with others in The Crying of Lot 49?

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)

This section contains 1,009 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample