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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What feeling does Sontag think in Chapter 1 that a disease arouses?

2. In Chapter 2, from what time did the modern fantasy about cancer begin to take shape?

3. In the 19th century, what place was tought to be good for tuberculars?

4. When did Stendhal write Armance?

5. When did Goldsmith write about a diet that would correct consumption?

Short Essay Questions

1. How might the name of a disease seem to have a magic power?

2. What did Marie Bashkirtsev write about having tuberculosis?

3. How did "romantic agony" (29) derive from tuberculosis and its metaphors?

4. Why does Sontag believe that cancer patients were not told about their illness, but patients with cardiac disease were told about their condition?

5. At the time the book was written, what did many people believe about cancer?

6. Which economic spheres are affected by tuberculosis and by cancer?

7. How did the metaphor of TB provide for two contradictory applications?

8. How does Sontag compare illness to a kingdom?

9. How was TB seen as a disease of passion?

10. What conversation did Byron have with his friend Tom Moore in 1828?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Culture and psychology were used to explain illness. How were culture and psychology used to explain illness? What did psychologizing disease seem to provide? What did it seem to undermine?

Essay Topic 2

Juxtaposition is a literary device used to compare and contrast things and concepts. How does Sontag use juxtaposition to compare concepts, especially in Chapter 5?

Essay Topic 3

Susan Sontag is the author of Illness as Metaphor. Why did Sontag write Illness as Metaphor?

(see the answer keys)

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