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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 Turgenev write On the Eve?

2. From where did Keats write a letter to Fanny Brawne?

3. When did Thomas Paynell discuss cancer as a canker?

4. When was Bernard de Gordon's Pratiqum published?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. Who invented the cult of TB?

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

3. What was the earliest literal definition of cancer?

4. Which economic spheres are affected by tuberculosis and by cancer?

5. Why did Insarov, the hero in Turgenev's On the Eve, get TB and die?

6. What does Sontag want to debunk about illness as a metaphor in her book?

7. What example does Sontag provide of sex being prescribed to tuberculars as therapy?

8. How did "romantic agony" (29) derive from tuberculosis and its metaphors?

9. How does Sontag compare illness to a kingdom?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Juxtaposition is a literary device used to compare and contrast things and concepts. How does Sontag use juxtaposition to compare concepts, especially in Chapter 5?

Essay Topic 2

There was a divergence in the metaphorical descriptions of TB and cancer. How did the metaphorical descriptions of TB and cancer diverge? How and why did technology create the divergence?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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