BOOK ONE: GENESIS
STUDY GUIDE
ANSWER EACH OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS ON A SEPARATE PIECE OF PAPER IN COMPLETE SENTENCES. BE SURE TO LABEL AND NUMBER THEM CORRECTLY. NOTE THAT SOME QUESTIONS REQUIRE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE/ QUOTATIONS.
1. What is the title of this book an allusion to? Why do you think it is significant?
CHAPTER ONE: Orleanna
1. Who is the narrator of this section? How does she describe herself?
2. Why do you think Orleanna describe herself and her daughters in from a third-person point of view?
3. What tone does the narrator employ throughout this introduction? Provide EXAMPLES from the text to illustrate the tone.
4. How does this chapter foreshadow the fate of the Prices? Give TEXTUAL EVIDENCE to support your answer.
5. From Orleanna’s imagining that the Portugese sailors went on instead of landing in Africa, what do you think she feels about the white man’s coming to that continent?
6. What does her description of the wild okapi and the museum okapi reveal?
7. When Orleanna says, “She could lose everything: herself, or worse, her children. Worst of all: you, her only secret. Her favorite,” to whom is she referring when she says “you”?
THE THINGS WE CARRIED
1. This subtitle is an allusion to Tim O’Brien’s novel. Look it up if you are not familiar. What might be significant about this subtitle given the allusion?
2. In what year is this section set? How does this differ from the previous chapter?
What was happening in the USA during this time?
CHAPTER TWO: Leah
1. Who is the narrator of this section? What is her relation to the narrator of the previous section?
2. What does Nathan’s attitude toward the Underdowns suggest about his character?
3. How does the narrator’s tone differ from Orleanna’s tone?
CHAPTER THREE- Ruth May
1. How does Ruth May’s childish sentence structure and vocabulary affect the text?
2. What is significant of Ruth May’s account of the biblical story of the Tribes of Ham?
3. What are Ruth May’s most prized possessions?
4. Ruth May alludes to the biblical story of Ham and to the Southern Jim Crow laws. How do you feel about Ruth May’s interpretation regarding the connection between the Bible and racial inequality? Moreover, what can you infer about the author’s attitude toward the issue of racial inequality and the creation of Jim Crow laws?
CHAPTER FOUR- Rachel Price
1. How do Rachel’s frequent malapropisms affect the text?
2. What does Nathan Prices’ impromptu sermon foreshadow about his relations with the natives?
CHAPTER FIVE- Adah
1. How does Adah’s diction and imagery in her narration affect the text?
2. How does Adah use her hemiplegic condition to her advantage?
3. How does Adah differ from her sister in physical and non-physical ways?
4. What is Adah’s attitude toward religion?
5. What is the significance of Adah’s description of the natives? Why do you think Adah takes time to describe the natives at length when none of the other narrators have done so?
CHAPTER SIX- Leah
1. Who is Brother Fowles? What do we learn about him in this chapter?
2. What does Nathan’s response to Mama Tataba’s warning about the poisonwood and the garden reveal about his character?
3. What is Leah’s attitude toward her father? How does her attitude toward Nathan differ from the attitudes of Orleanna and Adah? How do these different viewpoints affect the text? Give TEXTUAL EVIDENCE to support your claim.
CHAPTER SEVEN- Rachel
1. How do the people of Kilanga react to Rachel’s hair? Why are they interested in it?
2. When do the Prices host Easter? What do you think of Nathan Price taking liberties with this date change? Does it matter?
3. Why does Orleanna serve fried chicken at the church picnic?
4. Why is Nathan disappointed at the church picnic?
5. When Rachel sees the men in the pageant dancing around with their spears, she says, “I didn’t see there was any need for them to be so African about it.” What does she reveal about herself in this remark and those that she makes about clothing?
6. Rachel does show some insight that her father fails to observes her mother’s great contribution to the picnic. What does she reveal about each parent?
CHAPTER EIGHT- Ruth May
1. Ruth May’s naivete is used rather cleverly to comment on the signs of malnutrition and the many types of handicaps she sees. What insight does her childish reporting reveal about the differences between Congo and US culture?
2. How have the roles of Rachel and Adah become reversed in the Congo?
3. What happened to Mama Mwanza’s legs?
4. Who is Tata Ndu (Tata Undo)?
5. During Nathan and Orleanna’s discussion about the native’s bodies, which of the two adults has a more accurate view of the life of the Congo?
6. What does Orleanna’s disagreement with Nathan reveal about her character?
7. Why do you think the reader experiences Orleanna and Nathan’s disagreement through the narration of Ruth May? What effect does Ruth May’s simple narration have on the tone?
8. How does Ruth May’s ending comments about the razor strop and her father’s green swivel rocker fit the earlier content of this chapter?
CHAPTER NINE- Adah
1. How does Adah’s frequent use of palindromes affect the text?
2. Upon learning that Adah and Leah are gifted, Nathan says, “Sending a girl to college is like pouring water in your shoes… It’s hard to say which is worse, seeing it run out and waste the water, or seeing it hold in and wreck the shoes.” What does he mean by this statement? What does it tell you about Nathan’s character? How does it reflect the times?
3. How’s the weather in this chapter?
4. Why is the oval white china platter so important?
5. What punishment do the girls receive in the Price house?
6. Adah observes that Nathan finally “learned his lesson” and that he has been “influenced by Africa.” What is she referring to, and why is it significant?
7. How does Adah’s tone illustrate Nathan’s arrogance, even as he is replanting the garden? Give TEXTUAL EVIDENCE to support your answer,
8. Adah makes references and quotes from several famous literary works/ authors in this section. List at least 2 of these and how their inclusion is siginificant.
CHAPTER TEN- Leah
1. How does Leah’s attitude toward Nathan differ from Adah’s in the previous chapter?
2. Orleanna’s devastation over the ruined cake mixes further develops what theme?
3. Why do none of the girls betray their mother’s profanity to their father?
4. Explain the significance of the simile: “My father wears his faith like the bronze breastplate of God’s foot soldiers, while our mother’s is more like a good cloth coat with a secondhand fit.”
5. Leah records that her mother comments, “We brought all the wrong things.” Of course, she refers to material possessions, but what mental pictures and attitudes have also been proven wrong?
CHAPTER ELEVEN- Adah
1. What theme does Nathan’s disastrous fish feast develop?
2. Does Nathan Price have the support of the Mission League? What might this fact foreshadow for the Prices?
3. What is the significance of Adah’s snmyhyms?
4. Why does Adah feel more comfortable in Kilanga than in Bethlehem?
5. Where is the irony in Nathan’s parable about the fan belt?
6. How does the chapter shed light on Nathan’s attitude toward women? Why is it significant that Adah narrates this chapter?
7. Adah compares the First Baptist Church of Kilanga to the Tower of Babel. Then she sings her palindrome to “Amazing Grace”. What was the Tower of Babel? How does her observation about Kilanga go deeper than just the confusion of the language?
CHAPTER TWELVE- Leah
1. What is preventing the plants from producting vegetables?
2. Why does Mama Tataba leave? What do you predict will happen to the family without her?
3. How does Mama Tataba’s decision to leave reinforces the Tower of Babel metaphor? What does her advice to Orleanna reveal?
4. Why will no one be baptized in the river?
5. How do the events in this chapter serve to shake Leah’s faith?
6. Why does Nathan release Methuselah? What does this suggest about the characters?
GENESIS- As a Whole
1. Go back and read the first page of this section and quote from Genesis. How do you think this quote pertains to this section? Why do you think the author chose it?
2. Think back to the subtitle “The Things They Carried” and its allusion to Tim O’Brien’s novel. What might be significant about this allusion?
3. Why do you think Genesis ends here?
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