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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The section entitled "Catastrophe" refers to two systems of despair. What are they?
(a) Physical despair and mental despair.
(b) Active despair and passive despair.
(c) Gentle despair (active resignation) and violent despair (total destruction).
(d) Angry despair (rage) and hopeless despair (depression).

2. In this section, how is the term "karma" defined?
(a) As nirvana, which the lover hopes to attain.
(b) As suffering, which the lover hopes to inflict on the other.
(c) As nothingness, which the lover hopes to attain.
(d) As causality, which the lover wishes to escape from.

3. Which of the following phrases is an example of tautology, as presented by the author?
(a) The adorable is what is impossible.
(b) I love you because you are absent.
(c) I adore you because you are fascinating.
(d) The adorable is what is adorable.

4. What effect does the other's atopia have on language?
(a) It does not have any effect on language.
(b) It makes the lover take refuge in falsehoods.
(c) It inspires the lover to new and better descriptions of the other.
(d) It makes language indecisive and false; the other cannot be qualified.

5. How does the person concealing his feelings wish to be perceived?
(a) As tough and courageous.
(b) As both pathetic and admirable; child and adult.
(c) As unlovable.
(d) As worthy.

Short Answer Questions

1. At the beginning of the book, in the section entitled, "How this book is structured," what is the name that the author uses to describe the different sections of the book?

2. When the narrator states that "the other whom I love...is atopos," what does he mean?

3. In the section on absence, to what early experience does the author link the subject's feelings about the absent lover?

4. The lover associates atopia in the other with which of the following qualities?

5. "The Other's Body" divides the other's body into two parts: what are they?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the effect that the lover hope to achieve by adopting ascetic behavior.

2. Discuss the function of the dark glasses in Dark Glasses/To Hide.

3. In "Adorable!," the author notes how the lover sees the other as a Whole; what does he mean?

4. What is the ascetic process that the lover goes through in the section entitled To Be Ascetic/Askesis?

5. In the section called The Tip of the Nose/Alteration, the author uses a scene between Werther and Charlotte from the novel Werther to represent the lover's change in attitude toward the loved one. What happens in this scene and what does it demonstrate?

6. Briefly describe the lover's sense of engulfment in the section "I am engulfed, I succumb..."/To Be Engulfed.

7. How does Catastrophe discuss the "amorous catastrophe" experienced by the lover?

8. In "All the delights of the earth"/Fulfillment, what does the author mean when he says that fulfillments are not spoken?

9. How does the mother-child relationship relate to the lover's feelings about the other's absence?

10. Describe the two affirmations of love discussed at the end of the section entitled Intractable/Affirmation.

(see the answer keys)

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