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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. When did Shelley write to Keats and comment on his appearance of consumption?

2. How many people have to become citizens of the sick, according to Sontag?

3. When did Stendhal write Armance?

4. Why did Wilhelm Reich believe that Freud got cancer?

5. In Wings of the Dove, what did Milly Theale's doctor advise as a cure for her TB?

Short Essay Questions

1. At the time the book was written, what did many people believe about cancer?

2. How does Sontag compare illness to a kingdom?

3. When and why was it possible to separate the definitions of cancer from TB?

4. What passion did people think would given them cancer if not discharged, and what example is provided of that belief?

5. What is the origin of the word tuberculosis?

6. What stages does cancer have and how does it progress?

7. How were metaphors of TB broken up in the twentieth century?

8. How did the metaphor of TB provide for two contradictory applications?

9. How did a character in The Magic Mountain explain symptoms of disease?

10. Why does Sontag believe that cancer patients were not told about their illness, but patients with cardiac disease were told about their condition?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Culture and psychology were used to explain illness. How were culture and psychology used to explain illness? What did psychologizing disease seem to provide? What did it seem to undermine?

Essay Topic 2

Some scientific studies seemed to link emotion and cancer. How did some scientific studies seem to link emotion and cancer? Why does Sontag believe that any apparent link between cancer and emotion is due to incomplete knowledge about cancer, its causes, and a cure?

Essay Topic 3

Metaphors used to describe cancer and tuberculosis changed over time. How did the metaphors used to describe cancer and tuberculosis change over time? What does etymology reveal about those changes?

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