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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 point is emphasized by the Clinic Worker's initial confusion about Leo's name?

2. What is Henry's first concern when he learns that Leo is staying at the townhouse?

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

4. Who was the first person to die in the farmhouse?

5. After meeting Henry, what is the main point Eric's friends try to make about his relationship with Henry?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What does the farmhouse caretaker say is the reason that so many gay men died during the AIDS epidemic?

4. What happens as soon as Toby gets back to his apartment after he visits his agent?

5. What regrets did Michael's mother have about his death, and what did she do to ease her conscience?

6. How does Leo react when he first sees Toby at the farmhouse?

7. What admission about Leo does Henry make, and why does Eric find it so upsetting?

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

9. How did Henry's fear during the AIDS epidemic end up robbing him of his ability to truly love another man?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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.

Essay Topic 2

In what sense are Toby's and Walter's experiences with Eric and Henry examples of "Cinderella" stories? Why is Eric's rescue of Leo a thematically important counter-example to these instances of being rescued by a romantic partner? Does the text contain any other strong examples of the gay community working together to educate, nurture, and guide younger gay men, or are other examples of this kind of mentorship in the text simply the natural outcome of individual friendships and romantic partnership? What is the evidence for Eric's assertion that the gay community has historically provided this kind of mentorship? Write an essay in which you consider the strength of textual evidence for Eric's beliefs about the importance of the community passing cultural information and guidance from generation to generation. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

Essay Topic 3

How does Act One create a contrast between Eric and Toby that foreshadows the events of the remainder of the play? Write an essay that establishes how Act One characterizes both men and demonstrates how these characterizations create contrast. Then, trace how subsequent developments in the play arise naturally from this contrast. Finally, tie your observations to some thematic claim that this play seems to be making. Defend your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the play.

(see the answer keys)

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