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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. Milosz explains that people who enter into the state feel what emotion?

2. By standards of the East, as compared to the West, how is anyone with talent treated?

3. Which Ketman asserts that men do not know how to rule themselves or properly distribute goods?

4. When a man looks to the West, why does he not have clear insight?

5. When the Red Army came into Poland in 1945, how were writers treated?

Short Essay Questions

1. Although human interaction is often characterized by some degree of acting, how do Eastern communists take this to an extreme? How does this affect them?

2. Why does man find such joy in the "collective warmth" of which Milosz speaks?

3. Several times, Milosz describes bombed Warsaw as the cratered moon. How is this significant?

4. How does Alpha's hunger for purity and strong heroic characters prepare the way for the New Faith? Could he have gone any other way?

5. When the Nazis invaded Warsaw, every man quickly changed his view of the world. Rather than reporting a corpse lying in the gutter, he passes quietly on. What does this say about man's state of mind then?

6. The Red Army had no reason to help Warsaw in its battle against the Nazis. Why was this true, and how did it set the stage for the new communist government?

7. Why does the man entering the gate of communism feel that he is doing something wrong?

8. "If something exists in one place, it will exist everywhere" (pg. 29). Why does the man in destroyed Warsaw believe this, and how does it affect his spirit?

9. From several references to Tito throughout Chapters 2 and 3, what can the reader infer about him? What does the center gain by making an example of him?

10. Why, according to party policy, can there be no contradictions in the minds of Soviet citizens?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Milosz asserts that the way to rule a nation's mind is through the word. Is this true or are there other factors equally important? Given what he says about both Nazi and communist controls over the printed word, how was this played out in Poland?

Essay Topic 2

Milosz called Beta's war stories terrifying because they were told simply and truthfully, almost brutally. How is it possible to tell such stories with so little emotion? To what degree is empathy a necessary quality of stories? Is it possible for the reader, removed by many decades and a culture, to experience a similar lack of sympathy?

Essay Topic 3

Several people in The Captive Mind believe that life without religion, philosophy, and art is not worth living. Is this true? Are there necessary things which this list does not include or, conversely, is the list too long? Be sure to define the terms clearly (e.g., is art a painting hung on the wall, or is it the beauty found throughout the world?)

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