*NOTE: There are questions on two novels on this page. Choose only one question, about one novel, to answer.
Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love
Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
Directions: You are required to answer one of the main questions, which will appear in red. This question is due no later than Thursday, Dec. 4. Following the red questions will be other questions, in black, which you should read and think about--they may help you answer the main question. However, you are not required to answer these questions in writing.
Please answer the question as thoughtfully as possible, after reading the lecture. Then post your answer to the English 102 Message Board by the deadline.
If you are registered in Section 7622, you'll use Message Board 1. Click on the button below to visit your Message Board:
If you are registered in Section 7623, you'll use Message Board 2. Click on the button below to visit your Message Board:
Your responses to other students' answers are due by midnight on Saturday, Dec. 6. In order to get the full 20 points, you MUST respond thoughtfully to at least 3 or 4 other people's postings.
Remember: This discussion question is worth a possible 20 points. Late answers will receive 0 points. Points will be assigned according to the thoughtfulness of your answer, not by whether it is "right" or not, since sometimes there is no "right" answer. Just be sure your ideas are supported by the material in the story (see Lecture 1).
Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love
WARNING! These discussion questions will reveal plot points. If you don't want to know what happens, wait until you have finished the novel to read them.
1. What echoes of A Midsummer Night's Dream are there in this novel? Baxter has chosen to have his novel reflect elements of Shakespeare's play; what does this add to the novel?
2. How do appearances contradict or obscure reality in this novel?
3. How does the novel's title reflect the themes of the novel?
- Why does Baxter choose to name his narrator "Charles Baxter"?
- Why begin the novel with Baxter's amnesia and loss of identity? How is that theme carried throughout the novel?
- What brings the narrator back to himself when he has night amnesia? How does this introduce the theme of love? How does it set the tone of the novel?
- Mirrors are referred to many times. How is the mirror a metaphor for love? for relationships? for the world?
- Why does the narrator refer to himself as a "vampire" (4)?
- Tunnels are mentioned several times. What is their metaphoric and symbolic significance?
- Why and how does the stadium reappear throughout the stories? Why begin with a stadium? Why not a coffee shop? Or a convenience store?
- There are many fairy tale references. What are some of them? What do they imply about love?
- How do dreams function in the novel?
- Bradley loves "representational art that was full of problems you couldn't solve just by looking" (34). How does that statement reflect the ideas, situations, and people of the novel, as well?
- How is Bradley's painting, "The Feast of Love," symbolically and metaphorically significant? How do its content and ideas reflect the themes of the novel?
- Baxter (the narrator) introduces Kierkegaard's ideas about love on page 76, and draws similarities between God and love. What does he say? How does it reflect the ideas and events of the novel?
- Baxter says that, like love, God can come back after he's dead: "...when He is dead, he doesn't have to stay dead. He can come back if he chooses to" (77). How does this idea relate to the rest of the novel?
- Bradley says people get obsessed with images (86), and Harry tells a story about "signlessness" (88). How do these ideas relate to each other? To the ideas, events, and people of the novel?
- Why does Baxter (the author) collapse the wall between fiction and reality? How does he do it? (Think, for example, about the conversation between the narrator and Diana on page 127.)
- How does the relationship between Diana and Bradley contrast with the relationship between Chloe and Oscar?
- The psychic who "sees" Oscar's death says that Chloe's love will keep him alive (160ff.). Is she right?
- Bradley says of his painting, after his breakup with Diana, that he "vandalizes" his canvases. Harry Ginsberg calls it "devastation painting" (215). How do these paintings contrast with his "Feast of Love" painting? How do they reflect events in the novel?
- Bradley says, after meeting Margaret, "I am no longer a story. Happiness has made me fade into real life" (246). Explain what he means.
- Is this a collection of short stories or a novel?
Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
WARNING! These discussion questions will reveal plot points. If you don't want to know what happens, wait until you have finished the novel to read them.
1. Coming-of-age novels can be set in any time period. Why did Kidd choose to set her novel about Lily Owens in 1964, during the Civil Rights Movement?
2. Lily says, "I realized for the first in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it" (63*). How is this idea reflected in the rest of the novel?
3. August says, "Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here" (107). How does this idea relate to Lily, and to the rest of the novel?
4. Do you think Lily really shot her mother?
- How do the quotes on bees at the beginning of each chapter relate to the content and theme of that chapter?
- Do you think there are really bees in Lily's room at night?
- How do bees operate metaphorically and symbolically in the novel?
- What themes are introduced in the first paragraph? In the first chapter?
- What does Lily imagine will happen when she meets her mother in Heaven? What does this daydream reveal about Lily?
- How did Lily's mother die?
- What event lets Lily know that Rosaleen loves her?
- What is Lily's image of her mother at the beginning of the novel? How does that image change?
- Why is T. Ray so cruel to Lily?
- What event changes Lily's feelings toward T. Ray and makes her decide to run away?
- What is the symbolism of the bees in the jar? Why do they refuse to leave the jar? Do they eventually leave? (28)
- What does the episode at the Ebenezer Baptist Church (29) reveal?
- Why does Rosaleen deliberately pour her tobacco juice on the men at the Esso station? (31-32)
- Why does she refuse to apologize while the men are beating her? (46)
- How are Lily and Rosaleen changed by the events of July 4, 1964? Why did Kidd choose to set these events on July 4?
- Rosaleen accuses Lily of treating her like a pet dog (53). Is Rosaleen right?
- Why does Lily tell August the truth when she asks why they are there? (72) Later, Lily makes up an elaborate story. August sees through it, but allows them to stay anyway. Why? (74)
- What does Lily discover about her own hidden prejudice? (78)
- What is the purpose of May's wall?
- How does Lily feel when she discovers June doesn't like her because she's white? (87) What point is Kidd making about racism?
- August tells Lily the story of Beatrix, the nun who ran away (90-91). What is she trying to tell Lily?
- What is the story of the statue in August's house? Why does it appeal to Lily so much?
- Why can't Lily touch Mary's heart the first time she tries? (111)
- Zach says to Lily, "You look like the kind of girl who'll wreck something for sure" (118). Is he right?
- August says to Lily, "The problem is [people] know what matters, but they don't choose it...The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters" (147). How does this relate to Lily?
- Why does Lily dream of her mother as a cockroach? What does the dream mean?
- Why is Zach arrested?
- Why does May kill herself?
- How is Zach changed after his release from jail?
- How is Lily's name symbolic?
- How did August meet Lily's mother?
- Why did Deborah marry T. Ray?
- Why is Lily so angry with her mother? Does she get over it?
- How does Lily finally know her mother loved her?
- Why does Lily save the mouse bones and carry them around?
- August tells Lily she will have to find a mother inside herself (288). What does she mean?
- T. Ray finally tracks Lily down at August's. How do his behavior and actions during this confrontation change Lily's opinion of him?
- At the end of the novel, has Lily forgiven T. Ray? Has she forgiven her mother? Has she forgiven herself?
*All page numbers refer to the 2002 paperback edition.