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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 another reason that the narrator is having a better time being homosexual?

2. What does the apartment building's doorman tell the narrator's mother when she returns?

3. How does the narrator feel about the criticism of the person in #102?

4. Where do the narrator and the person in #124 live?

5. The narrator is desperate to ___________________.

Short Essay Questions

1. How do the narrator's views of himself change according to whose perspective he is viewed in?

2. What happens to the narrator after Sean is gone?

3. What does the narrator experience for the first time after a sexual encounter in a subway restroom that he has never experienced before?

4. What are a couple of topics that Lou tries to educate the narrator on?

5. How does shame get pushed aside in the events leading up to, and after, the Stonewall Inn raids?

6. Who is Sean and how did the narrator meet him?

7. What do the narrator's parents--and society in general--consider to be a "normal" lifestyle for their son?

8. What is the significance of the author's using the present tense for scene in which the narrator engages in group sex in the subway restroom?

9. Where does the narrator move to instead of going to Harvard where he has been accepted into a graduate program?

10. What is the reality of Lou's life as an engaged man?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

"The Beautiful Room is Empty" is a classic coming of age story. What does that classification entail? Why does this novel fit into this category? Explain.

Essay Topic 2

The story takes place as America is experiencing the Hippie Generation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, and drug usage in the late 1960s. Explain the significance of these political and cultural events on the narrator and the other homosexual people in his life. How would the narrator's life be different if he were living as a young man today? Explain.

Essay Topic 3

The role of parental influence is a strong one--mostly negative--on the narrator. Why was the narrator's sexual preference particularly hard on his father? What solution did the narrator's mother have for her son's "problem"? Explain.

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