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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. How does Rieux caution Tarrou?

2. What interesting character enters the novel at this point?

3. What is the focus in the questioning of Cottard?

4. How does the Spaniard spend his days?

5. What is Tarrou's response to the ideas in the High Mass sermon?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why have telegrams become the main means of contact ordinary people now have with the outside world?

2. What is one result of the sudden closing of the city gates?

3. When does the Prefect finally take action?

4. What is Dr. Rieux worried about in Chapter 2?

5. What factors are making life stressful for Dr. Rieux?

6. What does Dr. Rieux muse about in Part 1 Chapter 5?

7. What is the situation with plague serum?

8. What does Fr. Paneloux tell the people in his sermon at High Mass?

9. Why is Jean Tarrou important in the story?

10. As described in Chapter 7, what are the first steps taken to deal with the crisis?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The Plague depicts people coping with a terrible crisis. It is concerned with separation and loss. Choose three characters from the novel and discuss the way each of them deals with separation and loss.

Essay Topic 2

Choose two characters from the novel, one appealing, the other not so. Compare and contrast these two characters, referring closely to the text.

Essay Topic 3

'Camus' novel The Plague shows us a hero who isn't exactly heroic.' Do you agree or disagree? What is the conventional idea of 'the hero' and does Dr. Rieux fit in with that idea? Discuss the kinds of heroism depicted in the novel.

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