Answers to Phantom of the Opera Questions

1.      Correct Answer: C

Why: A doesn’t work because the speaker constantly references Erik by name, discusses his past and the speaker’s opinion of him. There is no textual evidence to support either B or E. The speaker is far from horrified—he shares humane details about Erik, emphasizing his wish for normalcy. So the correct answer is C as the speaker clearly states that “we must needs pity the Opera ghost” (Leroux 263), showing that he sympathizes with Erik’s predicament.

2.      Correct Answer: B

Why: The speaker recognizes the phantom “by the plain gold ring which he wore and which Christine Daae had certainly slipped on his finger” (Leroux 264), making Option I correct. Nothing in the text supports that the idea that Phantom got married; the speaker even references Erik’s unfulfilled dream of having a wife. The ring was placed on Erik post-mortem, meaning that Christine came back to Paris in order to keep her promise and bury him. So the ring signifies the strength of their bond, making Option III  right. So, B is the correct answer.

3.      Correct Answer: D

Why: The mention of building relates the sentence to the next, not the repetition of “ordinary,” eliminating E. Since the adjective doesn’t particularly draw out the sentence or build to an upcoming climax, it does not create suspense. Although the repetition does contrast with Erik’s “adventurous life” (Line 16) and can create a rhythm, that isn’t the main purpose of the literary device. It mainly functions to drive home Erik’s wish to be “‘like everybody else’” (Leroux 263), making answer D the correct answer.

4.      Correct Answer: C

Why: The novel is written in first person so the “I” mentioned in Line 5 refers to the speaker, eliminating A.  The referenced “he” helped the monarch, so the “he” can’t be the Sultan. Although there is direct dialogue with the reader, the reader never enters the story. The Yildiz-Kiosk in the following sentence is a place, not a person, making the correct answer D.

5.      Correct Answer: C

Why: Line 6, “I need only say that it was Erik,” makes it clear that the piece is told in first person. Repetition can be found in Line 28-30; it was also referenced in a previous question. Rhetorical questions can be found throughout as the speaker attempts to sway the audience’s opinion.  Lines 7-8 contain polysyndeton, making C, anaphora, the only unaccounted for literary device.  

“The Poem As Mask” By Muriel Rukeyser

Orpheus When I wrote of the women in their dances and       wildness, it was a mask, on their mountain, gold-hunting, singing, in orgy, it was a mask; when I wrote of the god, fragmented, exiled from himself, his life, the love gone       down with song, it was myself, split open, unable to speak, in exile from       myself.                  There is no mountain, there is no god, there is memory of my torn life, myself split open in sleep, the rescued       child beside me among the doctors, and a word of rescue from the great eyes.   No more masks! No more mythologies!   Now, for the first time, the god lifts his hand, the fragments join in me with their own music.

Ana Sucaldito

Mrs. Wilson
AP Multicultural Literature B
15 January 2013

True or False

            Mankind strives to be honest, but in the end, everyone wears a mask. In Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera, and Muriel Rukeyser “The Poem as Mask,” the readiness to tear down the wall between perception and reality determines the fate of those who remove their mask.
            The entire poem builds around the symbolism of mask and myths. Even the structure “The Poem as Mask” reflects this sentiment. The poem actually serves a response to a previous work of Rukeyser’s Orpheus: The Poem. Rukeyser wrote this novel, which reinterpreted Orpheus’ tale, in court masque, a form of dramatic monologue. In “The Poem of Mask,” however, she strips away this form and reveals the truth behind the novel using free verse.
            Rukeyser reveals that “when she wrote of the women . . . it was a mask” (Rukeyser 1-2). The women in this piece live in the wilderness, uninhibited. Many of Rukeyser’s works deal heavily with feminism so the women’s lifestyle, “on their mountain, gold-hunting, singing” (Rukeyser 3) could be her ideal. Her placement of the women on a mountain could symbolize that Rukeyser sees their lifestyle as momentarily unavailable; a mountain she must climb.
            For Rukeyser, casting off the mask allows the dream to become reality. The author strips away another mask as she reveals that “the god, fragmented . . . it was myself” (Rukeyser 4-7). Orpheus’ story served as a mask for her own—the women as her hopes and Orpheus as her reality. Yet, at the poem’s climax, she shouts “No more Masks! No more mythologies!” (Rukeyser 14). This one line stanza signals triumph and a conviction to live in reality. This conviction changes everything. Before, the women singing on a mountain was unattainable. But once Rukeyser resolves to no longer hide, “the fragments join in [her] with their own music” (Rukeyser 16). By accepting them as part of her reality, she heals herself, giving even the fragments their own voice, making the “women . . . singing” (Rukeyser 1-4) a reality.
            For Erik from The Phantom of the Opera, wearing a mask is the most natural thing in the world. In fact, he has multiple. Erik disguises his mortality by acting as the Opera Ghost. The Opera Ghost gives him power, power he uses to wield fear and extortion, which gives him nearly full reign of the Opera. His disguise as “[Christine’s] Angel of Music” (Leroux 93) gives him a different power. The power to get close to Christine Daaé. Finally, his physical mask allows him to be ordinary, to reach for a life of “ordinary doors and windows and a wife” (Leroux 228).
            The removal of her masks healed Rukeyser, but destroyed Erik: the difference lies in who removes the mask. Rukeyser lets her go—but Erik has his “snatch[ed] off” (Leroux 93). Christine’s horrified reaction breaks the Phantom. She doesn’t accept his reality, so neither can he. Erik loses his humanity as he fights to keep Christine in any way he can; he only regains it when Christine agrees to marry him, giving him “all the happiness the world can offer” (Leroux 253). Only then does he begin to heal again and accept himself.
             Masks conceal, but they also protect. They protect the wearer from harsh reality until they are ready to accept it. In Muriel Rukeyser’s “The Poem as Mask,” the speaker removes the mask, accepting her reality, healing herself. But, like in Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera, when the mask is removed before the wearer is ready, the wearer can be destroyed by the reality they shunned.

The Tragedy of Macbeth (Act V, Scene 1)
By William Shakespeare

LADY MACBETH	Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,
	then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my	40
	lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
	fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
	account?--Yet who would have thought the old man
	to have had so much blood in him.
Doctor	Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH	The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?--
	What, will these hands ne'er be clean?--No more o'
	that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with
	this starting.	50
Doctor	Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gentlewoman	She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of
	that: heaven knows what she has known.
LADY MACBETH	Here's the smell of the blood still: all the
	perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
	hand. Oh, oh, oh!
Doctor	What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.	60
Gentlewoman	I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
	dignity of the whole body.
Doctor	Well, well, well,--
Gentlewoman	Pray God it be, sir.
Doctor	This disease is beyond my practise: yet I have known
	those which have walked in their sleep who have died
	holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH	Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so
	pale.--I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he	70
	cannot come out on's grave.
Doctor	Even so?
LADY MACBETH	To bed, to bed! there's knocking at the gate:
	come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's
	done cannot be undone.--To bed, to bed, to bed!

 

Ana Sucaldito
Mrs. Wilson
AP Multicultural Literature B
15 January 2013

Consumed

            Obsession, though seemingly benign, is as dangerous as a disease. Obsession consumes the characters of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera, but the fulfillment of the obsession ultimately decides the character’s ultimate fate.
            Shakespeare’s syntax and diction reveals Lady Macbeth’s insanity as she reappears in Act V, Scene I. Her random interjections, such as “Hell is murky, “(V.I.40) highlight her madness to the others in the scene, a doctor and the gentlewoman. Hyperbaton, the inversion of word order, emphasizes the reversal of the natural order—the downfall of a once powerful woman. Yet, vestiges of her power still linger. The doctor and the gentlewoman worry that “she has spoken what she should not” (V.I.52). Even when mad, Lady Macbeth’s words hold power.
             One of Lady Macbeth’s most famous monologues takes place in Act V, Scene 1 as she proclaims, “Out, damned spot!” (V.I.39). The spot appears again and again, taunting and haunting the Lady. Its meaning comes from earlier in the play when Macbeth states that his hands will never be clean of murder, lamenting his guilt. Lady Macbeth’s hallucination of a spot of blood symbolizes her own guilt and remorse rearing its head. Shakespeare emphasizes her guilt through hyperbole, as well as through rhetorical questions as she questions whether “these hands ne’er be clean?” (V.I.48).
             Lady Macbeth’s obsession stems from her fatal flaw. Ambition. Power is what matters to her. Even in her madness, she uses it as a buffer, claiming “What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to/account?” (V.I.41-43). Her obsession with power is what destroys her, riddling her with guilt and making it so that others would never “have such a heart in [their] bosom” (V.I..64). Obsession takes such a toll on her that she longs for death, to go “to bed, to bed, to bed” (V.I..74).
            Lady Macbeth’s guilt, which ultimately causes her to commit suicide, originates in her past; similarly, Erik’s past haunts him, a past where he existed only as “a subject of horror and terror” (Leroux 261). Like Lady Macbeth, Erik goes to horrendous lengths to keep the object of his affection: Christine Daaé. He orchestrates “the kidnapping of Christine Daaé, the disappearance of the Vicomte de Chagny and the death of his elder brother” (Leroux 1). Erik lost much of his humanity in Persia, yet the catalyst to the previous events was Christine’s rejection.
            While both Erik and Lady Macbeth became consumed by maddening obsessions, Erik was able to regain a measure of sanity. The return of Erik’s sanity and the complete loss of Lady Macbeth’s originates from the outcome of their obsession. Lady Macbeth accomplished her goal: Macbeth held more power than anyone. This was her downfall. Her obsession for power so overwhelmed her that, when realized, she had no longer had anything left to live for. “What’s done [could] not be undone” (V.I.74); she committed suicide.
            But Erik could never fulfill his dream; he could never have Christine’s love. Even if he forced her into marriage, she would commit suicide and always cherish Raoul. Christine’s promise to be his “living wife” (Leroux 252) to save Raoul allowed Erik to give up his obsession, restoring his sanity. However, it still has taken a toll on him. All Erik had the energy to do was long for “his end [which was] near at hand” (Leroux 254).

Obsession, like power, corrupts anything it touches. In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera, obsession consumes Lad y Macbeth and Erik, driving them mad—and once consumed, sanity can only be regained when the obsession is let go.