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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. Who does Dr. Hilarius think the police are when they come to his clinic?

2. What is the name of the religious splinter group Bortz attributes to changing the pornographic version of the play?

3. What is the name of the auctioneer who will be crying the lots the day Oedipa goes?

4. The San Francisco tourist wearing the lapel pin advises Oedipa to write his group's founder through the ____ system.

5. According to Genghis Cohen, who organized the courier service in the Bergamo region around 1290?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the historical marker that Oedipa remembers seeing at Fangoso Lagoons commemorate?

2. Oedipa compares her search for The Tristero to what process?

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

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

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. Why does Oedipa consider her job as co-executor to be similar to Driblette's job as director of a play?

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

8. Give examples of individuals with the post horn symbol who are somehow alienated from society.

9. By gathering clues from diverse obscure sources, what is the account of how the Tristero organization began that Oedipa pieces together?

10. 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?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Fate is a dominant theme in The Crying of Lot 49. 1) Discuss this theme throughout the novel. 2) How is Oedipa trying to find out the fate of America, not just her own fate?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 891 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample