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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 is Eric's reaction to Toby's email about his new play?

2. Where is Henry going on his business trip during the Christmas holidays?

3. What regret does Toby's play make Eric feel?

4. What does Eric realize when Leo tells him about Toby choosing books for him?

5. What characteristic of the various owners of the farmhouse is most emphasized in the Prologue to Part Two?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How does Tristan latch onto a metaphor Eric proposes and turn it into a critique of a particular politician?

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

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

5. What revelations about Leo's childhood occur in Act Two, Scene Four?

6. What news does Eric give Henry at Toby's funeral, and how does Henry react?

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

8. In Part Two, Act One's flashback to Young Henry and Young Walter first encountering the farmhouse, how do the two men's reactions differ?

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

10. Who was Edward Carpenter, and how did he inspire Maurice?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Now that you have finished the play, you have seen the Young Men both take part in and comment on the play's action in a variety of ways. What does it mean that they are both characters and narrators in this play? What does it mean that many of them play several different characters? Which play only one character, and what is the significance of this? Why are they initially identified as "Young Men" rather than "Chorus" or some other term? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about the significance of the Young Men to the play's overall meaning. Defend your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the play. If you use outside sources, be sure to cite these in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

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 3

What claims is The Inheritance making about respect for history and its impact on the present? How do Eric's beliefs about stories and writing relate to these claims? How is Lopez's play itself a manifestation of these claims? Write an essay in which you trace the development of the text's thematic motif regarding respect for history and show how this motif is supported by Lopez's action in writing The Inheritance. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

(see the answer keys)

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