View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which painting does Sontag "find it difficult" to look at?
(a) Picasso's "Guernica."
(b) Callot's "The Miseries and Misfortunes of War."
(c) Da Vinci's "The Last Supper."
(d) Titian's painting of the flaying of Marsyas.

2. The footage from a 1898 charge of Colonel Roosevelt's volunteer cavalry, the Rough Riders, was replaced with film of a staged charge later for which of the following reasons?
(a) Colonel Roosevelt was unsatisfied with the footage.
(b) The footage of the actual event was not dramatic enough.
(c) The lighting on the day of the event was insufficient.
(d) The photographer lost the film reel.

3. The mass media bombarded viewers with shocking images because:
(a) These images received the highest interest ratings in viewer polls.
(b) They were more likely to stand out from the countless images people saw every day.
(c) People secretly enjoy images of mass destruction.
(d) The public demanded the uncensored truth.

4. Paraphrasing Woolf, Sontag states that the privileged class fails to respond to images of war with the appropriate pain. She describes this as a:
(a) Failure of empathy and imagination.
(b) Failure of wealth.
(c) Failure to behave humanely.
(d) Failure of ignorance.

5. Which was the first war to be covered by television cameras?
(a) The Korean War.
(b) The Vietnam War.
(c) The War on Terror.
(d) Desert Storm.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Sontag, anti-war sentiment:

2. Krieg dem Kriege contains images captioned in which four languages?

3. Noting the long history of the "iconography of suffering," Sontag lists three types of art which depict incredible agony. Which of the following is NOT one of them?

4. Sontag discusses the use of images of the dead to bolster hatred of the enemy. Which of the following recent events, aired on the Al Jazeera network, does she use as an example?

5. Sontag discusses the subtitle of "Here is New York" in some detail. What was this subtitle?

Short Essay Questions

1. Sontag compared the photograph to a maxim or a proverb. Explain this comparison. What does it tell us about the nature or impact of photographs?

2. How did war journalism change during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39)? How did the coverage of this war more closely resemble modern media coverage of conflicts?

3. Explain the significance of Jacques Callot's 1633 series of etchings titled "Les Miseres et les Malheurs de la Guerra" (The Miseries and Misfortunes of War). Why did Sontag discuss this work?

4. Sontag distinguished between "image makers" and "image takers". What is the difference between these two groups of artists? How are they perceived differently?

5. According to Sontag, how are photographs of victims a form of rhetoric? What is their purpose or message? How do they function to convey this message?

6. Explain the connection Sontag made between religious narratives and iconography and the Western understanding of images of suffering. Discuss at least one example from the text.

7. Discuss the reaction of the British public to the image of trenches of unburied bodies taken 10 days after a British defeat during the Boer War. What does this reaction say about the sensibility of the public?

8. According to Sontag, how does a photograph in the news media differ from a written account? How does the audience change?

9. Discuss the significance of "Here is New York," the exhibit of photographs taken on September 11th during the collapse of the World Trade Center.

10. Sontag stated that the photographer's intentions do not determine the message of the photograph. Discuss the contributing factors which influence the reception of photographs in the media.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,158 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample