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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. What favor does Eric ask from Henry as Henry is about to leave for his business trip?

2. What does Toby introduce Leo to during their summer trip?

3. What ideology does Henry tell Jason 2 his ideas about taxation fall into?

4. What is one of the most significant consequences of Henry and Walter's first sexual encounter?

5. What is the consequence of Toby's behavior at the rehearsal of his play?

Short Essay Questions

1. What points about money and status are made in the scene between Eric, Leo, and the two doormen outside Toby's apartment building?

2. What is the "faux-art" that Tucker makes?

3. What memory is Toby recreating when he pressures Leo into attending the parties during their summer trip, and how does the reader know this?

4. How does Toby's agent react to his new play?

5. When Toby and Leo are reunited, how does Toby initially react to Leo's desperate situation, and what changes Toby's attitude?

6. What course does Eric's life take after Toby's death?

7. What causes Leo to think of HIV as "A bitter inheritance," and what is the significance of this diction (239)?

8. How does Toby's experience at the opening of his play relate to the scene he makes at Eric's wedding?

9. When Leo wakes up next to the stranger in Act Two, Scene Four, what does he choose to steal from the man, and why?

10. What belief does Eric express in an attempt to resolve the political disagreement between Henry and his friends?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What claims is The Inheritance making about cultural appropriation from the gay community? How does this relate to the part of the play's plot in which Henry and his children try to keep Eric from inheriting what Walter wanted to bequeath him? Why do Eric's and Walter's individual personalities, ages, and beliefs matter in understanding this relationship? How does the class status of Henry and his children mimic the power dynamic between the larger community and the gay community? Write an essay in which you show how the plot regarding the farmhouse illuminates the text's concerns regarding cultural appropriation. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

Essay Topic 2

Do some more research into Howards End and Lopez's personal connection to this work. Now that you have finished The Inheritance, how would you characterize the relationship between the two texts? Where do you see echoes of Forster's novel, and how do details of Forster's life influence Lopez's play? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about the purpose of basing a contemporary play on Forster's book and show how this impacts the reader's understanding of theme. Defend your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the play and from your research. Be sure to cite all sources in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

The Inheritance is very much a play about a narrow segment of New York's gay community at a particular historical moment. How does this specificity in its setting impact the universality of the play's message? What part of New York's gay community is centered in this play, and which members of the community are marginalized? How does the play attempt to remediate this marginalization, and is it successful in these attempts? Do the concerns of the characters in this play, and the play's ultimate message, translate to other gay communities across the nation and the world? Does the play have a message that is more universally applicable to persecuted communities, or does its theme apply only to members of the gay community? Write an essay that takes and defends a position about the universality of the theme of The Inheritance. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the play.

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