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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 is the basis of dialectical materialism, in Milosz's understanding?
2. The atmosphere in a collective society is one of what?
3. Milosz illustrates Ketman with the example of what person?
4. Within communist countries, it is not important what a man says but:
5. Fifty years of re-education within the party can change entire nations so that they become what?
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. What is communism's goal for the relationship between the present and the past?
3. 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?
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. .How did Alpha become a more religious writer when he turned away from Christianity?
6. How does Ketman create pride in the man who practices it?
7. What is historic fatalism and how does it affect even a man's most personal interactions?
8. Why does man find such joy in the "collective warmth" of which Milosz speaks?
9. The pill takes away man's metaphysical concerns--why is this significant?
10. How does national Ketman satisfy, as much as possible, the nationalist leanings in a man? Why is this an important Ketman?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Given the examples only of these four men, what is your impression of communism? Is it possible to get a good idea of both communist ideals and its reality by reading about their lives? Use examples from their chapters to illustrate your thoughts.
Essay Topic 2
"The moment when bullets pierce the flesh is a moment of amazement for the body. Life and death mingle for a second..." (pg. 184). How accurate is this statement (written and read by people who have never experienced death)? How does this add to the reader's horror of these deaths?
Essay Topic 3
Throughout the book, the converts to communism decry the evils of capitalism, even going so far as to say capitalism led directly to Hitlerism (pg. 128, Beta's assertion). Is this necessarily true? If communism leads, as history has proven, to a dictatorship, then where does capitalism lead?
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This section contains 1,082 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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