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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. At the best, the audience sets the artist down as what?

2. How many of the permanent watchers are there at a given time?

3. Who are the permanent watchers, usually?

4. What is the artist's manager called?

5. In the prime days of the hunger artist, how often did people want to see him?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why doesn't the artist complain to the management at the circus?

2. Where is the artist's cage placed in the circus? What is the description of it?

3. What does the artist "do" in the cage? What is his interaction with the audience?

4. Why doesn't the artist quit his profession when interest dwindles? What does he do instead?

5. What are the reactions of those who do stop at the circus?

6. What does the artist tell his watchers regarding the ease or difficulty of his fasting? What do they respond?

7. What is the major contrast between the circus and the artist's previous days working solo?

8. What does the artist think of the impresario's claims that the artist's melancholy is a result of the fasts?

9. What is the narrator's exposition regarding the artist in Part 2?

10. How does the artist react to those who believe him to be "cheating"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the character of the impresario. What is his appearance? What are this character's actions and objectives in the story?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the autobiographical elements of "A Hunger Artist." What similarities are there between the artist and the author? What differences?

Essay Topic 3

What other figures in history have had famous fasts? Why? How does the hunger artist's fast compare to these?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 712 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample