American Boy (Watson) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
1. How does Matthew’s position as an outsider affect his description of events? Does this identity, along with his age at the time of the novel's events, make him reliable or unreliable as a narrator?

2. Dr. Dunbar is portrayed as a character of contrasts. Townspeople are divided in their opinion on him, and Matthew frequently encounters characteristics of Dr. Dunbar’s that oppose each other. Is one the true Dr. Dunbar?

3. Does Dr. Dunbar step outside the lines of professional ethics by taking the boys under his wing in his medical career?

4. Matthew identifies with the mythological figure Antaeus, comparing his own need for involvement with the Dunbars to Antaeus’s need for contact with the earth. What does this convey about Matthew’s self-image?

5. Matthew describes his attraction to Louisa by saying it was “too soon to call it love and too simple to call it lust, but I felt something powerful…” Where do his feelings rate on a scale between a schoolboy crush and mature love? Is it possible to rate the affections that one experiences in youth?

6. Matthew only briefly describes his father. How does this view contrast to his relationship with Dr. Dunbar? Is Dr. Dunbar truly a father figure to Matthew? Does Dunbar’s abandonment at the end of the novel negate the fathering and counseling that he did previously?

7. How are mothers portrayed in this novel? Think of the quiet and powerless Mrs. Dunbar, the laissez-faire Mrs. Garth, the non-existent mother of the young Louisa, and the seductive Mrs. Knurr.
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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