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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 what ways are the thinker and the artist alike?
(a) Both have a tendency to reject expressionism.
(b) Both thinker and artist have commitment and become themselves in their work.
(c) Both have total commitment to success.
(d) Both have a desire to influence the minds of others.

2. According to Camus, what is the most obvious symbol in The Trial?
(a) An insect.
(b) Naturalness.
(c) A knife.
(d) Shame.

3. What information do we have about Sisyphus in the underworld?
(a) Nothing.
(b) That he fought Orpheus over Eurydice.
(c) That he pursued La Belle Helene.
(d) That he stole Pluto's wine.

4. What has been the focus of don Juan's existence?
(a) Self-actualization.
(b) Short-lived joys.
(c) Absurd escapades.
(d) Avoiding conflict.

5. According to Camus, what is an important relationship between The Trial and The Castle?
(a) The novels have the same central character and each is based on a play by Shakespeare.
(b) The Trial presents a problem which The Castle partly solves.
(c) Both novels have a hedonistic main character who denies theism.
(d) The Trial shows us the end of life and The Castle shows us Heaven.

Short Answer Questions

1. In The Castle, what is significant about the character Amalia?

2. Of what figurative device is: 'These are our nights of Gethsemane'?

3. What was Sisyphus' attitude to the gods?

4. What is ridiculous about the writer who emulated Peregrinos?

5. Which philosopher claims that anxiety is at the source of everything?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Sisyphus attempt to test his wife's love?

2. Why does Camus claim that there can be no experience of death?

3. Why is Sisyphus completely appropriate as the absurd hero?

4. In what ways is Sisyphus a rebel?

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

6. What is Camus' basic criticism of phenomenology?

7. How does Camus describe the Church's treatment of heretics?

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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