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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 does Lear think attacked him in his sleep?

2. Who asks to stay with Lear in his cell?

3. What does the Boy say his wife keeps?

4. Who claims he has been blind for seven years on the stand at Lear's trial?

5. What action does Bodice perform throughout Act 1, Scene 3?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who is the wild man living in the woods? How does he know Lear?

2. Compare and contrast the characters of Bodice and Fontanelle. Whom are they related to? How are they similar? How are they different?

3. Why has the Small Man come to find Lear? Where has he come from?

4. How is the Wife of Gravedigger's Boy relevant to the plot? How does she feel about Lear living with her and her husband?

5. How does Susan's conversation with Thomas about Lear echo that of the Gravedigger's Boy and his Wife early in the play?

6. What does Fontanelle say on the stand against her father?

7. What is an "aside"? What purpose does it serve the author? Give an example of an aside in Lear.

8. How does Fontanelle react to being taken prisoner? What does she say?

9. How does the power shift in Act 2, Scene 5? What actions indicate this?

10. What does Warrington reveal about Bodice and Fontanelle in Act 1, Scene 2? What is his course of action?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the climax of Lear? How does this climax reflect both the actions in the play and the thematic climax? What has been sacrificed?

Essay Topic 2

Compare and contrast Lear and the Ghost. How are these characters similar? How are they different? What is ironic about their friendship?

Essay Topic 3

Lear makes a reference in Act 3 to Christ on the cross, which contains a certain irony in that Lear eventually finds himself in a similar place to that in which Christ found himself - executed by those in authority as an example to others who would think and believe and act independently. What are other Biblical references in Lear? How can Lear (and others) be compared to Biblical figures?

(see the answer keys)

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