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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. What is the hero's great fear following his transformation?
(a) His father's anger.
(b) His boss' anger.
(c) His mother's tears.
(d) That his girlfriend will find out.

2. What binds a man to the absurd?
(a) His consciousness of it.
(b) Philosophy.
(c) His sentient nature regarding death.
(d) His intelligence.

3. What attitude can overcome all fate?
(a) Diigence.
(b) Indolence.
(c) Indifference.
(d) Scorn.

4. What is important about an actor's fame?
(a) The problem of paparazzi.
(b) Its illusory nature.
(c) Ultimately it brings displeasure.
(d) Its fleeting nature.

5. What would make man feel alienated in the universe?
(a) The recognition that the universe is infinite.
(b) Realization that all work is futile.
(c) Falling out with relatives and friends.
(d) The realization that the world that can no longer be explained comfortably.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Camus' view concerning the idea that the artist can be detached from his work?

2. What has been the focus of don Juan's existence?

3. In what ways are the thinker and the artist alike?

4. What was Sisyphus' attitude to the gods?

5. What information do we have about Sisyphus in the underworld?

Short Essay Questions

1. What important feature of Dostoevsky's work does Camus explore in the section entitled 'Kirilov'?

2. According to the quotation from Nietzsche, what vital function is performed by art?

3. How does Camus differ from many other commentators when considering the work of Kafka?

4. What technique of Kafka's does Camus posit as the reason for the unity in that writer's work?

5. In an absurd universe, are all actions permitted?

6. In mentioning the Diary (p. 100 of the Penguin edition), to what does Camus draw attention?

7. What is particularly interesting and unusual about Sisyphus and his paradoxical happiness in his fate?

8. According to Camus, what is the one serious problem for philosophy?

9. How does Camus account for the promiscuity of don Juan?

10. What does humanity need to do in order to understand the world?

(see the answer keys)

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