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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Gross give Ballas and Pillar?
(a) An I.O.U.
(b) Cash.
(c) A check.
(d) A money order.

2. What do Stroll and Savant offer as proof for their theory that Gross "lusts after" Maria?
(a) That Gross has asked her out on a date.
(b) That Gross has trouble speaking when she is around.
(c) That the Staff Watcher heard Gross call her sweetheart.
(d) That Gross always gets up when she enters the room.

3. What does Maria ask Gross in Act 1, Scene 6?
(a) What he is doing at the party.
(b) Why he is no longer Managing Director.
(c) Why he tried to steal from Stroll's office.
(d) If he is going to learn Ptydepe.

4. What is the goal of the higher-ups in explaining the necessity for Ptydepe?
(a) To justify something that is obviously senseless.
(b) To change the company's policy.
(c) To cause tension between the workers.
(d) To help the workers understand it better.

5. The larger metaphor for the clerk is a warning against what?
(a) Communism.
(b) Liberalism.
(c) A Dictatorship.
(d) A Monarchy.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is revealed to be the person that authorized the use of Ptydepe?

2. What does Gross interrupt at the start of Act 1, Scene 5?

3. What does the item that Gross is carrying in Act 1, Scene 5 symbolize?

4. Who does Ballas point out is in control of Ptydepe?

5. The parallels Havel draws in Act 1, Scene 4 are between Ballas and what?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is Gross manipulated again in Act 1, Scene 5?

2. What possibility does Lear's empty classroom at the end of Act 2, Scene 8 symbolize?

3. What are some examples in Scene 6 of Gross being continually kept of the loop?

4. What is Ballas' new offer to Gross, and what is the cause of it as well as the reasoning behind it?

5. What do the cigars symbolize and how are they used to introduce the Staff Watcher's place in the play?

6. What is the reason Lear gives for a need of the new language, Ptydepe?

7. What is significant about Gross' search for cigarettes and what does Havel use it to represent in the play?

8. What does the introduction of Ptydepe signal in the play as it pertains to Gross and his position within the company?

9. As illustrated in Scene 8, what is necessary for a bureaucracy to have power over its workers, and what is this an analogy for?

10. What does the fact that Gross doesn't know the answers to Lear's Ptydepe questions also symbolize, and what is ironic about it?

(see the answer keys)

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