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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. As described in Chapter 1, what unnecessary practices might members of the household of a cancer patient subject the patient to?

2. Beginning with the Romantics, what disease was TB conceived to be a variant of?

3. In Chapter 2, according to what ancient physician did tumors resemble crabs?

4. What diseases have been encumbered by the trappings of metaphor?

5. In Chapter 3, what type of people were thought to be affected by TB?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. How did the apperance of tuberculosis become a staple of nineteenth-century manners?

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

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

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

7. What conversation did Byron have with his friend Tom Moore in 1828?

8. What is the history of the use of a synonym for TB?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Illness has frequently been used as metaphor. How does Sontag use metaphors in the book? Why does she believe that illness is not a metaphor? Why does she think that it was wrong to use illness as a metaphor?

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

Military metaphors were often used for cancer. What were some military metaphors that were used for cancer? Why were military metaphors used for cancer?

(see the answer keys)

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