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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 Toby's follow-up play called?

2. When Adam reminds Toby of his declaration of love and unwelcome sexual advances, how does Toby respond?

3. Why does Eric search through Henry's things when Henry is away on business?

4. How does Toby die?

5. What request does Leo make when he sees Eric's possessions arranged in the farmhouse?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. What does Henry's vague communication about Eric's belongings cause to happen at the farmhouse?

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

How effectively does Lopez use dramatic tension to keep the reader engaged? As you read the play, do you feel invested in knowing how obstacles will be overcome and whether the characters will achieve their goals? Do you eagerly push forward to find answers to questions that Lopez creates and see how characters will resolve their conflicts? How does the metatheatrical nature of the play interact with its dramatic tension? How do the commentary and actions of the Young Men and Morgan heighten or diffuse dramatic tension? Does the play's humor heighten or diffuse its dramatic tension? Choose a single act of the play, from either of the play's two parts, and write an essay that explicates and evaluates Lopez's use of dramatic tension in that act.

Essay Topic 2

How do the life experiences of the younger generation portrayed in The Inheritance differ from the life experiences of older men like Walter and Henry? How has this impacted their understanding of themselves and the wider gay community in New York? How does this understanding of community impact their behavior and choices? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about how the lived experiences of the older and younger generations in this play impact their relationship to the gay community and their own identity as gay men. Show how this difference illuminates the larger meaning of the play. Support your ideas with evidence drawn from throughout the play.

Essay Topic 3

What larger ideas about community and responsibility does the farmhouse represent? Why does its location matter? How do its owners' histories support the ideas it represents? How do Walter's and Henry's varying responses to the farmhouse relate to the farmhouse's meaning? Why does Henry frustrate Walter's plan to leave the house to Eric, and why does he discourage Eric from spending time at the farmhouse? What do the ghosts signify? What does the figure of the caretaker add to the reader's understanding of the house's meaning? What does Eric eventually choose to do with the farmhouse, and how does this confirm the meaning of the house? Write an essay in which you take and defend a position on the meaning of the farmhouse and its relationship to the play's concern with responsibility to community. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text.

(see the answer keys)

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