Recitatif” https://www.cusd80.com/cms/lib/AZ01001175/Centrici…

1. What role do Twyla and Roberta’s mothers play in the story? Why do they always ask about each other’s mother?
2. Why does Morrison withhold information about Twyla and Roberta’s race? Their racial difference is important to the story, but readers don’t who is white and who is black. There seems to be evidence. But, is it reliable? How does knowing or not knowing their race matter to the meaning of the story? Or does it? Explain.
3. Why does the story continually return to references to the orchard and to Maggie? What is significant in these continual references? What are we to make of the confusion Twyla experiences in her memories of these things? Of Roberta’s own confusion towards the end? Why does Morrison include such confusion about what happened to Maggie?
4. Why does Twyla stay at the demonstration, carrying her sign even when the disorder of the group has made her own placard meaningless?
5. Is this ultimately a pessimistic story? Or do identity and friendship show themselves as transcendent somehow, undamaged in their essence by change? What details in the story help you to decide on your answer?

“Everyday Use” https://intensiveenglish1.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/0…

1. This story boils down to one decision, one question: should Mama have given Dee the quilts she wanted? What do you think? Why does Mama give them to Maggie? Why doesn’t she want Dee to have them?
2. The two opening paragraphs, set off from the rest of the story, serve as a kind of exposition. What do these paragraphs tell you about Mama? How do they set up the conflicts explored in the rest of the story?
3. The action of “Everyday Use” is quite contained: a visit back home for college-educated Dee. Yet Walker expects us to understand that action in a larger context. What information about the past does Walker incorporate into the story’s present? How does it affect our understanding of the story’s attitude toward the three central characters? Does it explain the negative or critical response to the “new Dee”?
4. Dee’s interest in her family heritage is presented as somehow ingenuine or even hypocritical. What makes her appear that way? What role does her education and interest in culture heritage play in that portrayal?

“Girl”

1. What does the title of the story “Girl” suggest? Who is the speaker? Could there be more than one? Do you think the instructions to the girl are all given on the same occasion?
2. Examine the details that constitute the advice in the story. What kind of society or culture do these details seem to suggest? What kind of “girl” is the advice intended to produce?
3. Is the culture or the role of females in it different from what you are familiar with? How would you explain the political and social implications of the story?
4. How could Feminist Theory be applied to this story? What would a feminist analysis reveal?
5. What about Postcolonial Theory? How might it inform your interpretation and analysis of “Girl”?

“Three Shots” and “Indian Camp”

1. How is the title “Three Shots” significant to the theme of the story? What is the dominant impression of Nick’s experience before going to the Indian camp? What does he learn? Is it at all similar to what’s happening in “Girl”?
2. How could Gender Criticism be the basis of a comparison between these two stories and “Girl”?
3. What happens at the Indian camp that gives Nick such a different sense of being from the night before? What, if anything, has changed?
4. Is there any connection between Nick’s reaction to the darkness and nighttime and those of the older waiter in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”?

“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”

1. James Joyce once said of “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” “[Hemingway] has reduced the veil between literature and life, which is what every writer strives to do.” How does this story reduce the veil, and what role do the old man and two waiters play in the process? How does the idea of nothing or nothingness contribute to the conflict and meaning of the story? Is insomnia what keeps the unhurried waiter awake throughout the night? Explain. What else could it be?
2. Below is an image of Francisco Goya’s famous etching “Nada” from the Disasters of War series. Hemingway is said to have written this story after seeing it at an art exhibition in Spain. Does that shed any light on the theme or meaning of the story? What connections or clues can you find? What do they reveal? *picture attached below