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| 1. | What facts about writing and theater does Pinter find "not easy to reconcile"? |
| A. | Theater is a large, energetic, and public activity while writing is completely private. |
| B. | Writing is a silent process while performed plays involve speech. |
| C. | Writing is a relatively silent, immobile process and visually simple process while theater involves lots of motion, visuals and noise. |
| D. | Writing is a frustrating pouring out of self while performance is comforting release. |
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| 2. | What does Pinter say is his responsibility as a playwright? |
| A. | to answer to the world and advocate ideas that will be helpful or provoking |
| B. | to answer to the play alone—not to audiences, critics, directors, actors, or anyone else |
| C. | to answer only to himself and to express his own thoughts and feelings |
| D. | to answer to his conscience as he works to educate the world |
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| 3. | What is Pinter's attitude toward the idea that we all share a common reality? |
| A. | We all live in our own little worlds and though we try to share a reality we can not really succeed. |
| B. | We all have the same reality although we do each perceive it in a different way. |
| C. | Reality is subjective. He does believe that people have a shared common ground, but he describes it as quicksand. |
| D. | There is one mystical reality, but we can not really perceive it. Art is what we produce when we try to see what reality is. |
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| 4. | What distinction does Pinter make between himself and another kind of contemporary playwright? |
| A. | He tries to write like classic playwrights did before him but he says that most people have forgotten the great plays. |
| B. | Other playwrights all seem to write the same sort of plays about the same events, while he strives for originality. |
| C. | He tries to write as well as he can but most modern playwrights seem to just want to finish the play and don't care about quality anymore. |
| D. | Other playwrights tell the audience exactly what they want them to think and know, but he leaves much room for interpretation. |
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| 5. | How does Pinter feel about words? |
| A. | He loves them rapturously. |
| B. | Words are his demons and although he has to use them, he rather hates them because they confine him. |
| C. | He considers words to be simply tools and can not understand why so many writers make a big deal of them. |
| D. | He says his feelings about words are mixed. He takes pleasure in moving them around yet they feel burdensome to him as well. |
Literature
