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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which of the following does Sontag suggest is an ethical act?
(a) Remembering.
(b) Mourning.
(c) Fighting.
(d) Loving.

2. Which two things does Sontag say seem to go together?
(a) Trauma and memory.
(b) Amnesia and trauma.
(c) Death and heartlessness.
(d) Heartlessness and amnesia.

3. According to Sontag, people are less responsive to images of violence in which of the following contexts?
(a) Times of seemingly unending war.
(b) Times of relative peace in one's home nation.
(c) Instances of mass casualty.
(d) Armed conflicts amassing the deaths of military personnel.

4. Sontag claims that no one has a right to which of the following?
(a) Bliss.
(b) Happiness.
(c) Sympathy.
(d) Ignorance.

5. In portraying horrors, Leonardo da Vinci encouraged artists to be:
(a) Restrained.
(b) Sensitive.
(c) Pitiless.
(d) Cautious.

6. Sontag cites William Hazlitt's claim that sympathy is no more a part of human nature than is which of the following?
(a) Love of power.
(b) Fear of death.
(c) Fear of pain.
(d) Love of cruelty.

7. Sontag suggests that to make peace is to do which of the following?
(a) Understand.
(b) Forgive.
(c) Forget.
(d) Remember.

8. Sontag claims that Bataille could see extreme pain as a form of __________.
(a) Sadomasochism.
(b) Erotic pleasure.
(c) Deification.
(d) Transfiguration.

9. Sontag argues that journalists who photograph war are often received with resistance. She suggests that the desire to capture images of suffering is often described in which of the following ways?
(a) Cruel and unusual.
(b) Exploitative and perverse.
(c) Vulgar and low.
(d) Cruel and torturous.

10. Sontag lists three impulses which may be satisfied by viewing images of atrocities. Which of the following is NOT one of them?
(a) "To make onself more numb".
(b) "To force oneself to face taboo".
(c) "To acknowledge the existence of the incorrigible".
(d) "To steel oneself against weakness".

11. Discussing the common person's ability to feel sympathy, Sontag argues which of the following?
(a) People will automatically feel sympathy for victims of atrocity.
(b) People will naturally feel empathy, but will quickly distance themselves because society has programmed them to avoid involvement.
(c) People will do anything to keep from being moved by what they see.
(d) People will instinctually distance themselves from suffering.

12. Which of the following works does Sontag site as containing the first recognition of the human fascination with mutilated bodies?
(a) Plato's "The Republic."
(b) Homer's "The Iliad."
(c) Virgil's "The Aeneid."
(d) Socrates' "Apologia."

13. Which Dreiser novel does Sontag reference in the final chapter?
(a) "An American Tragedy."
(b) "Sister of War."
(c) "Death of a Salesman."
(d) "The Crucible."

14. Sontag argues that many people thought that which of the following makes war seem "real"?
(a) Photographs.
(b) Books.
(c) Proximity.
(d) Movies.

15. Sontag claims that some photographs which are "repulsive" can also ________.
(a) Allure.
(b) Shock.
(c) Silence.
(d) Impress.

Short Answer Questions

1. Sontag argues that which of the following effects keeps the television viewer's attention "light", "mobile" and fairly "indifferent" to the images on the screen?

2. Which of the following produced a documentary about a "deranged" Pacific war veteran who drives the streets of Tokyo speaking against Japanese war crimes?

3. Which work of literature does Sontag cite as evidence that war was once seen as part of a man's life?

4. Sontag cites one of her earlier books published in 1977. Which of the following is it?

5. In order to take pleasure in suffering, Sontag argues that one must necessarily have which of the following?

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