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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 career did Flan used to hold?

2. Where do the prospective buyers for Flan's Cezanne live?

3. Who does Paul jokingly say he will test on Catcher in the Rye?

4. What does Geoffrey say amazes him about New York in his first line?

5. What word does Paul repeat over and over as Ouisa tries to wake him in this section?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Ouisa discover when she wakes Paul in this section?

2. Describe Paul's entrance.

3. What conclusion do the five duped parents reach regarding what they have in common?

4. How does Trent and Paul's relationship end?

5. What is Flan's attitude toward the art he sells?

6. What mistake does Ouisa make while trying to apply first aid to Paul?

7. What does Paul say happened to him in the Park?

8. What new information does the Detective have when he calls Ouisa and Flan?

9. How does Guare loop time in this first half of the play?

10. How does Paul explain the naked man to Flan and Ouisa?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about the character of Paul. Focus on his objectives as a character. What does he want out of life, and why does lying his way into affluent homes and assuming a false identity help achieve it? What do the Kittredges offer him that the other families do not? Do you think that his objective reveals some psychological scar?

Essay Topic 2

Paul's deceptions throughout the play are met with a combination of incredulity, rage, and sadness. Write an essay about the reaction characters have to Paul's crimes, in three parts:

Part 1) What does Dr. Fine think he is achieving in offering Paul the use of his brownstone? What emotions and social attitudes does the realization of Paul's betrayal evoke in Fine?

Part 2) Why does Flan react so vehemently against Paul and never waver thereafter? What does he think Paul's motivation is in lying to them?

Part 3) Why do the parents become obsessed with discovering the truth behind Paul's deception? Why do they go as far as publishing their story in the New York Times.

Essay Topic 3

The idea of the imagination resonates strongly throughout he play, beginning of course with Paul's "thesis" in the first passages. Write an essay on Guare's understanding of imagination in three parts:

Part 1) Compare Paul's conception of the purpose of imagination in his thesis with what he perceives to be society's new definition of imagination. How are they different? Why does Paul consider the latter reductive?

Paul 2) How doe Ouisa, Flan and Geoffrey react to Paul's thesis on imagination? When Paul appears in Ouisa's imagination later in the play, how does he amend his notion of imagination?

Paul 3) How is what Paul actually does to the families of the play the opposite of his sense of imagination? Is he chipping away at his own personality living in a state of constant deception?

(see the answer keys)

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