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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 Ephraim compare Abbie's eyes to?

2. With whom does Eben go to sleep in Part 2 of Desire Under the Elms?

3. Eben's mother was Ephraim's _____ wife.

4. What city does Act 7 of Strange Interlude take place in?

5. Who is remarked to be a good dancer, in Part 3 of Desire Under the Elms?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do Evans and his mother talk about in Act 3 of Strange Interlude? What does she ask him about Nina?

2. What does Nina tease Marsden about in Act 6 of Strange Interlude that makes him angry? How does he react?

3. What news does Eben return to the farmhouse to inform his brothers of, in Part 1 of Desire Under the Elms? What is the brothers' reaction?

4. Where do the conflicts arise between the family in Desire Under the Elms? How do the characters' objectives lead to the essential conflict?

5. The morning after their "tryst," how do Abbie and Eben feel in Desire Under the Elms? How does Ephraim feel?

6. What do Abbie and Eben say to one another alone in the beginning of Part 3 in Desire Under the Elms?

7. Describe the conversation between Ephraim and Abbie in their bedroom in Part 2 in Desire Under the Elms. What do the stage directions denote in this scene?

8. What does Darrell tell Marsden about Nina's behavior at the hospital in Strange Interlude?

9. What happens in the falling action and resolution of Desire Under the Elms?

10. What does Abbie confess to Eben in Part 3 in Desire Under the Elms? What is his reaction?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the innovations which O'Neill introduced to the theater in each of these plays. Why did the police attempt to shut down O'Neill's works in New York? What is risque about these plays for their time?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss how the setting of each of the three plays affects the action and the characters. How are the settings different in the plays? What correlates to each? Discuss era and historical period in your answer as well as location.

Essay Topic 3

Compare the characters of Lavinia and Christine in the Mourning Becomes Electra trilogy. How and why do these characters become more alike in the progression of the trilogy?

(see the answer keys)

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