Review the list of questions listed and choose one to two of these questions to answer as Writing Assignment #2. For this writing assignment, you will choose 2 of the questions to answer. Your answer to these should be one page double spaced. DO NOT WRITE A SUMMARY OF THE STORY. Answer the questions from your own knowledge and do not consult any secondary sources. Compose and submit Writing Assignment #2.
Suggested Essay Topics
Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”
Discussion Questions
1.) Discuss the mother (the narrator) in this story. What kind of person is she? How does she seem to feel about Dee? About Maggie?
2.) Do the narrator’s language and grammatical usage match the picture she paints of herself?
3.) What elements prepare the reader for Dee before she arrives on the scene?
4.) How did Dee relate to her family before she left home? What role did she assume for herself? Does this change after she leaves home?
5.) How do you feel about Dee? Do you sympathize with her desire to “improve” herself and her family? Where do you think she goes wrong?
6.) Discuss the relationship between Maggie and Dee.
7.) What is suggested by Dee’s prolonged picture-taking with her Polaroid? Her kissing her mother on the forehead?
8.) Why has Dee assumed African dress, hairstyle, and name? How would you characterize the attitudes of her and her new husband/boyfriend toward their race? Positive or negative? Honest or simply “politically correct”?
9.) Discuss Dee’s mother’s and sister’s reactions to her new persona, “Wangero.” Do you sympathize with them?
10.) How would you describe the way that Dee reacts to the food and objects in her mother’s house?
11.) Why does Mrs. Johnson decide to stand up to Dee and not allow her to take the quilts at the end of the story?
12.) Why do you think Maggie is so content at the end?
13.) Could this story just as well have been about a white mother and her daughters? Aside from the African or Muslim names, does anything distinguish Dee’s relations with her mother and Maggie as especially black? If not, is that a strength of the story, or a weakness?
“A Rose for Emily”
1. What is important about the title of the short story, “A Rose for Emily”? What are the multiple meanings for the “rose”?
2. What are the conflicts in “A Rose for Emily”? What types of conflict (physical, moral, intellectual, or emotional) do you see in this story?
3. How does William Faulkner reveal character in “A Rose for Emily”?
4. What are some themes in the story? How do they relate to the plot and characters?
5. What are some symbols in “A Rose for Emily”? How do they relate to the plot and characters?
6. Do you find the characters likable? Would you want to meet the characters?
7. What is significant about the gray hair at the end of the short story?
8. What is the central/primary purpose of the story? Is the purpose important or meaningful?
9. How essential is the setting to the story? Could the story have taken place anywhere else?
10. What is the role of women in the text? What about single/independent women? What about the role of wife and mother?
11. Discuss how this story might be viewed as a conflict between North and South. Keep in mind that Homer Barron is a construction foreman and a northerner, while Emily Grierson comes from a genteel southern family. How might the physical descriptions of Miss Emily relate to this theme?
12. How is Miss Emily “a fallen monument” (part 1 paragraph 1)? To what is she a monument? Why is she repeatedly called an “idol”? What connection can you draw between these images and one of the story’s themes?
13. Describe Emily’s relationship with her father. What details in the story support your view? How does this relationship influence the development of events in the story?
William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”
Discussion Questions
1.) What are the sources of tension / conflict in this story?
2.) How would you account for the actions of the father — having burned the first barn, the rug incident, and going to burn the second barn? What is motivating the father to do these things?
3.) How would you account for the actions of the boy, especially as he seems ready to tell the truth about his father?
4.) Examine the boy’s “interior monologues,” the italicized parts of the story. What do these tell us about the boy, about others, about Faulkner’s style(s) of narration?
5.) Examine the references to the boy’s sisters in the story. How and why does Faulkner describe the sisters the way he does?
6.) Examine the places in the story where the boy’s mother and aunt appear. How and why does Faulkner describe these women the way he does?
7.) What are we “to take” from this story? What is the central theme or message? Are there other themes or messages as well?
8. Faulkner said he wrote to “uplift” the “hearts” of the people (source) (181). Do you find this story uplifting? Why or why not?
9. How do you feel about the character of de Spain? How does Sarty feel about him? How do you know?
10. Why do you think Abner starts fires? What quotes could you use to support your theory?
11. What do you think will happen to Sarty later in life? What are the chances of Sarty becoming a firefighter?
