View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Sontag argues that Goya's "The Disasters of War" was a turning point in the depiction of suffering. What does she cite as her reason?
(a) The captions, challenging the viewer to look.
(b) The starkness of Goya's craft.
(c) The detailed descriptions accompanying the work.
(d) The subtlety of the portrayal of war.

2. Which famous surrealist thinker does Sontag quote as saying "Beauty will be convulsive, or it will not be?"
(a) Virginia Woolf.
(b) Andre Breton.
(c) Pablo Picasso.
(d) Salvador Dali.

3. Who took the infamous image of Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Vietcong suspect in the street?
(a) Roger Capa.
(b) Roger Fenton.
(c) Timothy O'Sullivan.
(d) Eddie Adams.

4. In discussing the difference gender makes in perceptions of war, Sontag agrees with which of the following authors?
(a) Virginia Woolf.
(b) Tyler Hicks.
(c) Joyce Carol Oates.
(d) Henry James.

5. Sontag argues that we are most disappointed to discover that which type of photographs have been staged?
(a) Images depicting intimate climaxes.
(b) Images depicting spontaneous events.
(c) Images depicting gory battle scenes.
(d) Images depicting everyday life.

Short Answer Questions

1. Sontag references an agreement in which the United States, France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan came together to renounce war. What is the name of this agreement?

2. Sontag describes a famous photograph from the Spanish Civil War in which two things occur simultaneously. What are those two things?

3. The media may inform the public of war crimes and atrocities, but often fails to capture the:

4. Sontag argues that technological advances changed the way the public understands war by:

5. According to Sontag, war journalism first developed during which of the following two wars?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why do images of pain challenge us to look without flinching? According to Sontag, what purpose does this serve?

2. According to Sontag, how do mass Hollywood productions influence the public's perception of catastrophic or horrific events?

3. Explain Sontag's objection to the idea that a news broadcasting program can "give you the world." Why did she argue that compressing world news into broadcasted programming is bad?

4. Explain the purpose of photography collections such as Ernst Friedrich's "Krieg dem Kriege!" (War Against War!), and discuss how these works attempt to achieve this end.

5. Sontag discussed the captions to Goya's "Los Desastres de la Guerra" (The Disasters of War). Explain the significance of these messages to the viewer. How do these captions affect the impact of the image?

6. What did Sontag mean when she claimed that the memory of war is mostly local? What does this mean for international news firms?

7. Sontag suggests that the same photograph might elicit "opposing responses." Discussing a specific example, explain how this might be possible.

8. According to Sontag, how are standards for journalism determined in an era of tele-controlled warfare?

9. Discuss the purpose of Virginia Woolf's "Three Guineas" as explained by Sontag, and explain why Sontag opens her book with this reference.

10. Discuss the reaction of the British public to the image of trenches of unburied bodies taken 10 days after a British defeat during the Boer War. What does this reaction say about the sensibility of the public?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,132 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample