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This test consists of 5 short answer questions and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. On what day is the Zurich Library closed?
2. What does Carr imagine Cecily doing as she berates him at the end of this section?
3. In Lenin's poorly-remembered speech in this section, what does losing two revolutions look like?
4. Having only studied alphabetically, Carr says that politically he has not progressed beyond what?
5. In what year did Tristan Tzara die?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Lenin is more object than subject in Travesties. He is a commodity desired and detested severally through the play. Write an essay about his character. The first half of this essay should deal primarily with other characters' attitudes toward him. Why is he lionized by some and feared by others? How does his attempt to depart Switzerland force certain characters into awkward positions? The second half should deal with his personality and soul as described by Nadya. How does Lenin view the world, and how does this view lend itself to the embracing of Marxism?
Essay Topic 2
The dynamic between Age and Youth is a central conflict in Travesties. Write an essay about this dynamic. The first half of this essay should focus on the framing device of Old Carr. How are his senility and codified prejudices juxtaposed with the dynamism of Zurich in 1917? The second half of the essay should deal with the idea of the older Victorian era culture giving way to the more critical and free-form culture of Tzara and Joyce in 1917. How is this dynamic dramatized throughout the play?
Essay Topic 3
Travesties is a homage and subversion of Oscar Wilde's comedy of manners The Importance of Being Earnest. He steals certain characters and scenes outright and transposes them to a different era. Write an essay about the connection between these two plays in three parts:
Part 1) The two love interests in The Importance of Being Earnest are also called Cecily and Gwendolen. They, too, have odd caveats for their love. What conditions do the two women give in this play regarding their hearts and how do they reflect a world in flux?
Part 2) Mistaken identity plays a major role in Wilde's farce like in Stoppard's. Why do characters in Travesties assume false identities? What is the meaning of the switched folders? How do both represent something more political than personal?
Part 3) Earnest is a product of the Victorian Era, an era of certitude and stricture. Travesties transposes this story to the Edwardian era, when certainty died in the trenches. How does Stoppard undermine Wilde's pat farce injecting it with the madness of the First World War?
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This section contains 445 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) |
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