American Playwrights MCQs

Eugene O’Neill is an American playwright of which century?

(a) The 20th century

(b) The 19th century

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: The 20th century

What was the nostalgic dream of Mary Tyrone?

(a) A ballerina

(b) A good wife or mother

(d) A nun or pianist

Question’s Answer: A good wife or mother

Beyond the Horizon is written by __.

(a) Tennesee Williams

(b) Mark Twain

(d) Eugene O’Neill

Question’s Answer: Eugene O’Neill

Who is the author of the Long Day’s Journey into Night?

(a) Edward Albee

(b) Tennesee Williams

(d) Samuel Beckett

Question’s Answer: Eugene O’Neill

O’Neill pass away in

(a) 1976

(b) 1945

(d) 1963

Question’s Answer: 1953

Long Day’s Journey into Night presents

(a) Jamie

(b) James

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Alcoholism and drug addiction of Mary Tyrone

In The Hairy Ape O’Neill presents

(a) Realism with symbolic expression

(b) Symbolism

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Realism with symbolic expression

Which of the following best refers to O’Neill’s style?

(a) Mixture of many European languages

(b) American English with an accent

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Colloquial

Which of O’Neill’s plays present the American dream best?

(a) The Emperor Jones

(b) Beyond the Horizon

(d) Long Day’s Journey into Night

Question’s Answer: Beyond the Horizon

Beyond the Horizon is a drama about which of the following?

(a) Andrew Mayo

(b) Ruth

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Robert Mayo

According to ________, “It isn’t the end. It’s a free beginning… beyond the horizon!”

(a) Andrew’ Mayo

(b) Ruth

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: The consumptive dying Robert Mayo

The Hairy Ape is a drama which can be labelled as

(a) Realistic

(b) American transcendentalist

(d) Symbolist

Question’s Answer: Expressionist

The Hairy Ape portrays the life of _____.

(a) Comedy of ancient and modern life

(b) Post-Colonial America

(d) Recent times

Question’s Answer: Comedy of ancient and modern life

The Hairy Ape, a Play by Eugene O’Neill, author presents a world which can be described best as

(a) Brutal, stupid and profane

(b) Lovely

(d) Advanced technological superiority

Question’s Answer: Brutal, stupid and profane

Yank realizes that

(a) He did not belong to this brutal world

(b) Technology has given him strength

(d) He was rejected in spite of his adapting the brutal expectations of the world

Question’s Answer: He did not belong to this brutal world

Yank found kinship with

(a) The ape in the zoo

(b) Paddy

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: The ape in the zoo

Ezra Mannon’s family in New England are descendents of

(a) Calvinists

(b) Puritan

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Quackers

Christine developed an incestuous relationship with

(a) Adam Brant

(b) Orin

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Adam Brant

According to _________ in Lazarus Laughed, “Fear not life! You die-but there is no death for man.”

(a) Caligula

(b) Tiberius

(d) Miriam

Question’s Answer: Lazarus

In Lazarus Laughed. Lazarus is killed the second time by which of the following?

(a) Miriam

(b) Caligula

(d) Tiberius

Question’s Answer: Caligula

In which drama of O’Neill these are the parts.

“The Homecoming”. “The Hunted”, and “The Haunted”?

(a) The Emperor Jones

(b) Mourning Becomes Electra

(d) A Touch of the Poet

Question’s Answer: Mourning Becomes Electra

Lazarus Laughed is O’Neill’s

(a) Symbolic drama

(b) Religious chorus

(d) Tribute to Christian character

Question’s Answer: Poetic drama with mystic affirmation of life

Mourning Becomes Electra is based on the Greek myth of

(a) Bravery

(b) Incestuous love

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Incestuous love

Who avenges murder of Ezra Mannon?

(a) Peter

(b) Hazel

(d) Orm

Question’s Answer: Orm

Who is freed of puritan repressions and grows in sensuality and morality?

(a) Lavinia

(b) Hazel

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Lavinia

What happens after Lavinia makes love to Peter?

(a) Peter leaves repelled by her eagerness and she becomes a recluse

(b) She is egged on to have relationship with others.

(d) Peter is repulsed by her and kills her

Question’s Answer: Peter leaves repelled by her eagerness and she becomes a recluse

According to ________, “Love is not permitted to me. The dead are too strong!”

(a) Christine

(b) Hazel

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Lavinia

How the lovely Christine killed her husband Orin?

(a) Administering pretending to give him medicine poison

(b) Forcing a glass of wine laced with poison

(d) Strangling him in his sleep

Question’s Answer: Administering pretending to give him medicine poison

O’Neill was influenced by which of the following?

(a) Ibsen and Strindberg

(b) Greek tragedies

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Greek tragedies

Tom loves his mother but Tom aspires to which of the following?

(a) Escape from the world and progress

(b) Continue with his warehouse job and advancing in it

(d) Do nothing

Question’s Answer: Escape from the world and progress

In O’Neill’s plays one sees “the American family of

(a) Colonial era

(b) Colonial era to the present

(d) None of A, B, and C time

Question’s Answer: Colonial era to the present

Tennessee Williams is playwright of the

(a) Post-Second World War period

(b) First World War period

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Post-Second World War period

The Glass Managerie and A Streetcar Named Desire are the plays written by

(a) Eugene O’Neill

(b) Tennessee Williams

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Tennessee Williams

Ananda hopes for a way out when her son

(a) Leaves the tenement

(b) Keeps on supporting the family

(d) Becomes a mariner

Question’s Answer: Tom finds a better job

The Glass Managerie is a play by Tennessee Williams and is a play of

(a) A mother whose children are dead

(b) Sentiments and pathos of a frustrated mother

(d) A mother and her children who are social failures

Question’s Answer: Sentiments and pathos of a frustrated mother

The play Glass Managerie shows

(a) A swan song

(b) Realities of life

(d) Fantasies of a young mother

Question’s Answer: Fantasies of a young mother

Laura in “The Glass Managerie” is _____ .

(a) A healthy woman

(b) Crippled from childhood and is hypersensitive

(d) A psychopath

Question’s Answer: Crippled from childhood and is hypersensitive

Amanda’s future lies in

(a) Laura’s accepting the situation

(b) Laura’s forgetting her handicap and overcoming it

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Secretarial job for Laura and her getting a good husband

What happens when Tom brings his friend Jim O’Connor for dinner at home?

(a) Tom is scandalized by the attitude of the two women

(b) Laura welcomes him

(d) Jim is shocked by the interest shown in him

Question’s Answer: Mother sees in him a good husband but Laura is withdrawn

Laura is crippled and hyper-sensitive who is at home only in

(a) The sordid reality of a tenement with no future

(b) A dream world

(d) Prayers

Question’s Answer: Her private world which is centred around a collection of animal figures in a glass

What response does Jim have for Laura?

(a) He tells her she’s beautiful, tells her she has confidence, and kisses her.

(b) Looks at her casually

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: He tells her she’s beautiful, tells her she has confidence, and kisses her.

How Amanda tries to overcome her physical situation?

(a) By Dreaming of successful marriage for daughter and a good job for the son

(b) By Fantasising for happy times

(d) By Accepting the deplorable life of a tenement dweller

Question’s Answer: By Dreaming of successful marriage for daughter and a good job for the son

Jim suddenly withdraws and leaves because

(a) He did not like Laura

(b) He was already engaged

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: He was already engaged

What happens to Laura after Jim’s departure?

(a) She hopes for a second chance

(b) She decides to kill herself

(d) She is withdrawn and retreats further in her world of glass managerie

Question’s Answer: She is withdrawn and retreats further in her world of glass managerie

What occurs to Tom after Jim leaves?

(a) Amanda chastises him forcing his leaving home for ever

(b) Promises to work for someone else

(d) He goes out to bring him back

Question’s Answer: Amanda chastises him forcing his leaving home for ever

Which Tennessee Williams play won the Pulitzer Prize?

(a) A Streetcar Named Desire

(b) The Glass Managerie

(d) The Eccentricities of a Nightingale

Question’s Answer: A Streetcar Named Desire

What happens to Blanche when she is betrayed by Stanley, Mitch and Stella?

(a) She kills herself

(b) She breaks down

(d) She accepts that she is of unsound mind and leaves with the doctor

Question’s Answer: She accepts that she is of unsound mind and leaves with the doctor

Who is frightened by the contrasts between the illustrious past and the impoverished present?

(a) Blanche

(b) Mitch

(d) Stella

Question’s Answer: Blanche

Who reacts against the crude humour and animal maleness of Stanley Kowalski?

(a) Stella

(b) Mitch

(d) The doctor

Question’s Answer: Blanche

Who considers the life of Stanley and Stella as aimless as the ‘streetcar named desire’ shuttling through the

narrow streets?

(a) Stella

(b) Mitch

(d) Stanley

Question’s Answer: Blanche

Who calls Blanche a nymphomaniac?

(a) Mitch

(b) Stanley

(d) Stella

Question’s Answer: Stanley

According to ______, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”?

(a) Mitch

(b) Blanche

(d) Stanley

Question’s Answer: Blanche

Why does Stella, returning from the hospital after confinement, not believe the story of incestuous assault on Blanche?

(a) She believes it to be one of her fantasies

(b) She does not trust Blanche

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: She believes it to be one of her fantasies

Why Stanley and Stella are happy with each other?

(a) Stanley and Stella are cast in the same mould and enjoy a life of lust and sensuality

(b) Stella accepts the lusty crudeness of her husband

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Stanley and Stella are cast in the same mould and enjoy a life of lust and sensuality

Why does Stanley react against the refinement and good taste of Blanche?

(a) Because She is mad

(b) Because She is too good

(d) Because She lacks the essential feminine attractiveness

Question’s Answer: Because She is unrealistic

Why did the relationship between Blanche and Mitch end?

(a) Blanche is lonely and sad

(b) Blanche has a superiority complex

(d) Stanley tells a lie about Blanche being a nymphomaniac

Question’s Answer: Stanley tells a lie about Blanche being a nymphomaniac

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is drama which deals with

(a) Fight for the favour of a woman

(b) A farming family’s drama

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Struggle for control of the family plantatio

What is the role of Maggie in The Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?

(a) She is like Mac

(b) Central for she is the passionate, vital cat who wants to grab the plantation

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Central for she is the passionate, vital cat who wants to grab the plantation

What are the failings of Brick?

(a) Loves alcohol

(b) Being an ex-football héro

(d) Complacent

Question’s Answer: Failure to become a father

What did Maggie do to rekindle Brick’s desire for her?

(a) Tells untruthful stories

(b) Dances and attracts him

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Locks away the liquor

Who among American playwrights is best described as a representative of the theatre of the Absurd?

(a) Tennessee Williams

(b) Eugene O’Neill

(d) Edward Albee

Question’s Answer: Edward Albee

What Williams wanted to show about life?

(a) Life is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing

(b) Life lies in full involvement with it rather than shrinking from it

(d) Life is idealistic, worship it

Question’s Answer: Life lies in full involvement with it rather than shrinking from it

What characteristics come closest to describing Edward Albee?

(a) Experiments with the idea of American dream

(b) Writes musical opera

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Mingles the realistic with fantasy

In Albee’s plays one finds

(a) Spiritual sterility leading to exposition of a deep feeling of the tragedy of alienation

(b) A sense of doom

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Spiritual sterility leading to exposition of a deep feeling of the tragedy of alienation

The author of the drama of alienation in the U.S is _______.

(a) Edward Albee

(b) Tennessee Williams

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Edward Albee

In which play of Albee a homosexual youth kills an unsuspecting innocent stranger?

(a) The Death of Bessie Smith

(b) is Affraid of Virginia Woolf?

Question’s Answer: Who is Affraid of Virginia Woolf?

Why does the young man kill the innocent stranger?

(a) For he neither likes the dream life nor the world of reality

(b) For he is frustrated

(d) For he wished to perform a fertility rite

Question’s Answer: For he neither likes the dream life nor the world of reality

The young man kills the innocent stranger in the central park because

(a) He just wished to be funny

(b) He wanted to inflict injury on someone

(d) It is thrilling

Question’s Answer: He wished to overcome his own sexual perversion and inadequacy

The American Dream in its treatment can be described as

(a) Funny

(b) Pathetic

(d) Grotesque

Question’s Answer: Grotesque

What does The Zoo Story aim at presenting?

(a) Alienation

(b) A savage fantasy

(d) Hypocrisy of American life

Question’s Answer: A savage fantasy

The Death of Bessie Smith is a short play about

(a) The nonsense of American being one people

(b) Conflict between White and Negro Americans

(d) Savagery in American society

Question’s Answer: Conflict between White and Negro Americans

Is the American dream a central idea in Edward Albee’s plays? Which of these describe his theme best?

(a) A vague superiority complex

(b) Failure of consumer society

(d) Alienation

Question’s Answer: Alienation

The professor and his wife create a son in their minds to

(a) A fantasy to make them happy, so strong that it appears realistic

(b) Playing a game

(d) Be funny

Question’s Answer: A fantasy to make them happy, so strong that it appears realistic

Who is the author of the, There Shall be No Night?

(a) Edward Albee

(b) Eugene O’Neill

(d) Arthur Miller

Question’s Answer: Robert Sherwood

Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Is Albee’s

(a) Three-act play

(b) Five-act play

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Three-act play

The parents kill their adopted son because

(a) He will never become what they think to be perfect youngman,American dream youngman

(b) He is sick

(d) They refuse to be his Mummy and Daddy

Question’s Answer: He will never become what they think to be perfect youngman,American dream youngman

What describes the events of Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf best?

(a) All-night dance and party

(b) All-night drinking bout of a middle-aged professor and his wife

(d) A party at a young couple’s house in honour of the professor

Question’s Answer: All-night drinking bout of a middle-aged professor and his wife

What happens in Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(a) Comic release

(b) The old couple are joined by an instructor to make them give-up their pretensions

(d) There is a verbal articulation of their frustration

Question’s Answer: There is a verbal articulation of their frustration

The verbal torturing of each other in Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(a) To overcome the grimness of their predicament

(b) A fantasy

(d) Creating a world-order to please themselves

Question’s Answer: A fixation about a non-existent son to sustain them

Robert Sherwood in Idiot’s Delight shows ___ .

(a) A call for war

(b) A need for economic sharing of world’s resources

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: A plea for world peace

Arthur Miller in his plays shows ___ .

(a) War-time American social trauma

(b) A realistic account of the mid 20th century America

(d) Military life

Question’s Answer: A fusion of realism and symbolism

What is the role of Ben in the drama?

(a) He is Willy’s brother and a self- made successful

(b) He is Willy’s brother

(d) Nothing

Question’s Answer: He is Willy’s brother and a self- made successful

Willy Loman stands for

(a) Failure

(b) Love

(d) Alcoholism

Question’s Answer: Failure

In Death of a Salesman the salesman is faced with

(a) A new dawn

(b) War and economics of the war-time world

(d) Conflicting situation caused by his own false values and American value system

Question’s Answer: Conflicting situation caused by his own false values and American value system

Willy Loman sells

(a) Ormaments

(b) A dream

(d) Packed food

Question’s Answer: A dream

Sherwood in There Shall be No Night deals with

(a) Economic depression in America

(b) American invasion of North Pole

(d) Russian attack on Finland

Question’s Answer: Russian attack on Finland

Biff and Happy, the sons of Willy Loman, are not happy because

(a) They have no grit in them

(b) Refuses to accept reality

(d) He believes in false values and cannot cope with failure of his sons

Question’s Answer: He believes in false values and cannot cope with failure of his sons

The sons depart, leaving the father to deal with his own resentment, which results in _______.

(a) He decides to commit suicide to make insurance money available for his sons

(b) He kills

(d) Steals to provide for his children

Question’s Answer: He decides to commit suicide to make insurance money available for his sons

Willy Loman was _____ for his family.

(a) A stranger

(b) Nobody

(d) A salesman who had nothing to sell

Question’s Answer: Burden

According to ______ , “Willy was a salesman …riding on a smile and a shoe shine… Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It

comes with the territory”

(a) Biff

(b) Happy

(d) Charley, a friend

Question’s Answer: Charley, a friend

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play about ____.

(a) Madness

(b) Inhuman

(d) War

Question’s Answer: McCarthyism

The real and inner theme of “The Crucible”, a Play by Arthur Miller is

(a) Religious understanding

(b) Socio-political issues

(d) Right wing politics which dominated America of 1950s.

Question’s Answer: The conscience of the people

Why are two immigrants in trouble in A View from the Bridge?

(a) Inherent dislike for the immigrants

(b) They take away all the available job causing distrust

(d) Racial/natural discrimination

Question’s Answer: They take away all the available job causing distrust

Miller was a celebrity American playwright and was married to

(a) Miss U.S.

(b) A theatre actress

(d) Marilyn Monroe

Question’s Answer: A theatre actress

Who said? “Shall the dust praise him? Shall the worms declare his truth? Go

to him, take his shame away!”

(a) Danfarth

(b) Elizabeth

(d) Hale

Question’s Answer: Hale

Arthur Miller depicts definite aspects of American life which can be best described by

(a) New universal role

(b) Racial consciousness

(d) A sense of freedom

Question’s Answer: Problems and maladies of a new nation

According to ________ , “Clzeave to no faith, when faith brings blood”.

(a) Proctor

(b) Hale

(d) Elizabeth

Question’s Answer: Hale

What is the reaction of the family on Willy’s death?

(a) Feeling of freedom

(b) Sorrow

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Feeling of freedom

The Salem trial of which The Crucible reminds was based on

(a) Religious discipline to which the Salem community adhered to

(b) Religious fervour

(d) None of A, B, and C

Question’s Answer: Americans’ fear of the wilderness and forests as the abode of the devil

A View from the Bridge is about

(a) Rivers and ravines of the American continent

(b) Tears of aliens

(d) American landscape

Question’s Answer: Illegal immigrants

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