Scaffolded/Short-Answer Essay Questions

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

1. Strict gender roles of the time dictate much of the action and dialogue of the play.

• How does this play reinforce or destabilize gender roles? (Topic sentence)
• What influence does gender have on the action and dialogue of the play? Identify at least three specific scenes and use details from the text to support your ideas.
• How do gender roles impact forms of power and the meaning of desire? (Conclusion)

2. If we assume the play is set during the time it was written, it takes place in 1947. Certain references to music and politics provide contextual clues to the times as well. 

• How does Elysian Fields reflect or contrast with the larger context of mid-1940s America and the world at large? (Topic sentence)
• Consider, compare, and contrast Elysian Fields within a larger national and global historical context.
• How might the characters have behaved differently if they lived in today’s world? (Conclusion)

 3. Poker is a card game that the men repeatedly play in the text.

• Why do you think Williams chose poker as opposed to another card game or form of entertainment as a central event of the play? (Topic sentence)
• Analyze the scenes when poker is played (scenes 3 and 11).