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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In cycles that lasted several days, what would Delta do?
(a) Drink alcohol.
(b) Walk the streets.
(c) Write his poems.
(d) Take drugs.

2. As Beta relates, when Greek prisoners cannot march because they are too weak, how are they first punished?
(a) With death.
(b) With beatings.
(c) With three days' hard labor.
(d) With sticks tied to their legs.

3. Beta remained bitter because he was unable to see what?
(a) Individual man apart from society.
(b) Man in relation to his fellow man.
(c) The purpose of action within a community.
(d) Society's reasons for action.

4. Why was Gamma's writing weak?
(a) Empathy.
(b) Previous success.
(c) Proper doctrine.
(d) Human emotion.

5. As Beta scornfully realized, how could someone have power in Poland?
(a) Seize it by force.
(b) Destroy all Polish underground resistance.
(c) Follow the procedures established by the Polish government.
(d) Overcome the Nazis.

Short Answer Questions

1. When do Beta's stories show that people are good?

2. How were Gamma's interactions with people characterized?

3. While talking to Beker, who is about to be burned at the crematorium because he is too weak to work, what is Beta's attitude?

4. Rather than condemning the four men about whom he writes, how does Milosz open Chapter 8?

5. In a weekly magazine, Delta published short theater scenes under what title?

Short Essay Questions

1. Delta, in wandering the roads in France, met people from many different nations. How did this universal migration prepare the way even more for communist rule?

2. Beta saw life only in terms of society rather than in terms of individual man. How was this his downfall?

3. How did Beta's circumstances lead him to a poetry that constantly moved? Why was it restless?

4. How was Delta able to play the game that the center demanded of him--and be better at it?

5. Eventually Delta's poems became something of a dream, unreal. How was this inevitable?

6. In Chapter VIII, Milosz takes on the tone of a communist to describe the evils of the various classes. How is this more powerful than a mere description?

7. Nearly six years of Nazi rule had radically changed people's ideas of private property. Did this help or harm the communist idea of common property?

8. Beta's anger toward mankind became directed toward a fear of self-deception. How did this happen?

9. "Still, it was not easy to become a communist, for communism meant a complete revision of one's concepts of nationality " (pg. 147). How was this true?

10. Milosz opens Chapter VI with a description of Vilna as it existed during his childhood. Is this simply to introduce Gamma or is there another reason?

(see the answer keys)

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