1. What is the purpose of Dana's time travels?
2. "I could recall feeling relief at seeing the Weylin house, feeling that I had come home." (109) Why does Dana find a sense a comfort at returning to the Weylin house when she travels back in time?
3. What is the significance of Dana arriving back in time wearing "mens clothing"--i.e. pants and a blouse
4. What were the reasons for Alice's suicide? Do you think Alice would have done the same thing had Dana been there?
5. Why did Dana have to endure physical pain and destroy her own body so much to ensure she would be born? would she have been born if she did not go through with it?
6. how does Dana's naivete and ability to love affect the story? Are these traits beneficial or detrimental to Rufus, Alice, and the others of the plantation?
7. did the first person narrative have a stronger effect on the reader? how would the story have come across differently if not from the perspective of Dana?
8. although this story deals with a real history, it presents this history to the reader through the science fiction of time travel in a very unrealistic way, what effect does this have on the novel as a whole? how does this hinder the readers experience or enhance it.
9. How does Dana's going into the 1800's with a 1970's mind set affect her persona?
10. "how do you think Dana and Kevin's views of racism in their own time (1970's) have been affected by their experiences in the 1800's?
11. Should the environment or context that kindred is read in alter the reaction that readers have towards the text? For example does reading Kindred in 1979 publication date be different than when reading it today?moreover what might the novel say about todays society?
12. Race and time are critical forces within kindred. these are issues faced by each character.
A. Inferring from the text how would Dana and Kevin's experiences be different in the 1800's had their race been switched with Dana as a white woman and Kevin as a black man?
B. Referring to "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, what does Dana "carry" through time?
No comments:
Post a Comment