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. How does Milosz describe Delta's poetry?
(a) An abomination.
(b) A song played too quickly.
(c) A kaleidoscope.
(d) A chubby angel.

2. As Milosz witnessed, why was becoming a communist a difficult decision?
(a) A person gave up all his personal property.
(b) A person renounced his sense of personality.
(c) A person became subject to the whims of the bourgeois.
(d) A person renounced his sense of nationalism.

3. Apart from his poetry, what was Delta's personality?
(a) Completely deceitful.
(b) Sly and gloomy.
(c) Sly and fearful.
(d) Optimistic and cheerful.

4. When man is faced with constant death and when life seems meaningless, how does dialectical materialism seem?
(a) Useless and outmoded.
(b) Like a refuge.
(c) Mathematical and calculating.
(d) Mysterious and full of meaning.

5. In Chapter 5, how is Beta characterized?
(a) Shy and arrogant.
(b) Impossible to understand.
(c) Outspoken and arrogant.
(d) Shy and aloof.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the concentration camp, what kind of life does Beta lead?

2. In Chapter 8, Milosz explains that the totalitarian states places such emotional strain on its citizens that what occurs?

3. Why is Christianity the state's primary enemy?

4. How was Delta's cheerful poetry treated?

5. At a fairly young age, how did Beta die?

Short Essay Questions

1. Milosz writes that Delta could not (or would not) distinguish between truth and fable, even in his personal life. Is this the kind of mind the Party would have wanted?

2. How are the peasants, in several ways, the most helpless class of people?

3. 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?

4. Why does Milosz go to such pains to describe Gamma, when the other writers found in his book are given only a few sentences of description?

5. 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?

6. Milosz states that the goals of the workers are far different from those of the state. How is this so?

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

8. How could Delta, who was not racist, write such violently anti-Semitic material?

9. How were Beta and the people of his generation fallen into dark hopelessness?

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

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,201 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample