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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 Styron not able to recover?
(a) His fame.
(b) His friendships.
(c) His family.
(d) His lucidity.

2. What does Styron say he will do with the prize money he won?
(a) Give it all to charity.
(b) Retire early and write.
(c) Pay off all old debts so he could concentrate on writing.
(d) Give most to charity but save a small portion for a personal matter.

3. Where did Styron meet Hoffman?
(a) He had never really met him, only talked to him.
(b) At a writer's conference.
(c) At the del Duco award dinner.
(d) At a democratic convention.

4. What pressing question does Styron have about the course of depression?
(a) Why do some who suffered commit suicide while others don't?
(b) Why doesn't the person just cheer up and get over it?
(c) Why would a person who has everything still be depressed?
(d) What medicines are effective?

5. According to Styron, who wrote about depression and seemed to really understand it?
(a) Camus.
(b) Dante.
(c) Chaucer.
(d) Gary.

Short Answer Questions

1. What philosophical question does Gary present as central to all philosophy; a question that confuses Styron until years later when he suffers his depression?

2. What three factors does Styron name as contributing to depression?

3. Why is it hard for Styron to recognize depression in his friend, Gary?

4. Why is Styron not worried about the loss?

5. What does the suicide of another of Styron's friends lead him to believe?

Short Essay Questions

1. What term did Stryon say was a more apt description of depression than that word itself?

2. What did Styron say about the impression his intense thoughts of suicide would have on others?

3. What happened to Styron's body as he succumbed to depression?

4. What did Styron say was his most difficult piece of writing, and how did he describe it?

5. Why was depression such a hard thing for Styron in 1985?

6. What is the relationship between artistic temperaments and suicide and what was Styron's appeal in relationship to it?

7. What about the hospital was conducive to Styron's rapid recovery after months of intense suffering?

8. What did Styron tell the reader about the incidence of depression and artistic types? Who are some artistic types who suffered from depression?

9. What was Styron doing that was harming him, making his depression worse, though he thought it was helping?

10. Discuss the death of the poet, Randall Jarrell, who was a friend of Styron's. Was his death a suicide or accident, according to the coroner? What did Styron suspect, and why?

(see the answer keys)

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