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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. Which of the characters has the quote “if faced with choosing justice or order, I’ll always choose order” (59) taped above a workspace?

2. What does Amir say he is, now that he has renounced his faith?

3. Where does Amir say he saw a write-up of Emily’s museum show?

4. What is the immediate cause that leads Amir to hit Emily?

5. How does Jory say Isaac feels about her cooking?

Short Essay Questions

1. What grounds has Akhtar left the audience, by the end of the play, for feeling that there is a path to virtue and integrity?

2. What does Amir do to help Abe in Scene 4?

3. What is the significance of Amir’s display of contempt for Isaac, when they are arguing at the end of Scene 3?

4. How does Emily compare the Renaissance in the West and Islamic culture?

5. What does Emily mean when she says, in Scene 4, that her work was naïve?

6. What has happened in the intervening time between Scenes 3 and 4?

7. What do we learn about Isaac when Amir asks him if he eats pork?

8. What political position has Abe taken, as a result of the events that brought him back to Amir?

9. What causes Isaac to tell Emily that she will make the “mistake in London” again?

10. What does Amir accuse Emily and Isaac, in Scene 3, of feeling about Islam?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explain the important of Velázquez’ Portrait of Juan de Pareja n Disgraced. Why is this painting so important? How does its importance differ between characters? How does Amir’s sense of the painting change over the course of the play?

Essay Topic 2

What is missing from this play? What should have been covered or presented that was not? What is the effect of this absence? Describe an element that ought to have been covered, and explain why it would have made the play stronger.

Essay Topic 3

While talking about Islam and her art, Emily expresses the sentiment that people spend too much time focused on optics, and have “forgotten to look at things for what they really are” (31). Is this the closest thing the play gives us, by way of a rule for living or seeing? Is the tragedy of the play that none of the characters can live up to Emily’s vision? Or is it that even Emily’s pronouncement is insufficient, as she herself says, when she says later that she was naïve?

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