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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 5.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the depression and sense of hopelessness cause Styron to do?
(a) Run away from his wife and home.
(b) Write even more in an attempt to understand it.
(c) Go to bed for hours every day.
(d) Try to kill himself.

2. How does Camus's essay about a prisoner on death row impact Styron's writing?
(a) It causes him to want to write much better than he felt Camus did.
(b) It causes him to stop writing for a while.
(c) It gives him some ideas about stories he wants to write.
(d) It leads to his using a narrator on death row to tell the story in "Confessions of Nat Turner."

3. Who arranges a meeting between Albert Camus and Styron?
(a) Cino del Duco
(b) Rose Styron.
(c) William Styron.
(d) Romain Gary.

4. What philosophical question does Gary present as central to all philosophy; a question that confuses Styron until years later when he suffers his depression?
(a) Are all suicides due to weak character?
(b) Why does life have hardships?
(c) Does man depend on other men?
(d) Is life worth living?

5. What does Styron lose at the luncheon in Paris?
(a) Control of his anger.
(b) His best friend.
(c) His mind.
(d) His check for $25,000.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who does Styron compare his psychiatrist to?

2. What is unusual about Styron's visit to Paris?

3. What effect does the failure of medicines to act quickly have on the depressed person?

4. Though the death of the poet, Randall Jarrell, was ruled accidental, why does Styron say it was probably suicide?

5. According to Styron, what is the greatest fallacy about suicide?

(see the answer key)

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