Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Scarlet Sister Mary:
1. How do you see Mary Pinesett? Do you admire her...do you like her? Or does she irritate and anger you? Is she an early feminist, defining her own sexuality and identity while defying the social order? Is she a "primitivist" who uses sexuality and child-bearing to connect with the natural cycle of life? Is she a victim of spousal abuse, struggling to regain self-esteem? Is she an immoral, immature, self-centered woman? All...some... none of the above...or something else?
2. As a white writer, does Julia Peterkin play into racial stereotypes for African-Americans? Or, as W.E.B. Dubois said of her, does she have "the eye and the ear to see beauty and know truth" whether black or white?
3. Talk about the rat and the wedding cake as symbolizing the future prospects of Sister Mary and July's marriage.
4. What role does magic and superstition play in the Gullah community and in Sister Mary's life?
5. Do you care about this book's characters? Does Peterkin fully develop them—providing them with emotional and psychological complexity? Or do you find them flat and one-dimensional?
6. In what way might Killdee Pinesett be considered, in the words of one critic/reviewer, "one of the most moving, one of the most admirable characters is modern fiction"?
7. What kind of family does Mary create...what affect does her promiscuity have on her children? Is she a good mother?
8. How does the church view Sister Mary? And how do you view the church with its concepts of sin and grace? What about Brer Dee lining out the hymns?
9. At the end, when the church has accepted her back into its fold, does Sister Mary repent? Why does she keep the charm when Daddy Cudjoe asks her to return it? What does she mean when she tells Daddy Cudjoe, "E's all I got now to keep me young"?
10. Is this book a morality tale?
11. Are you at all familiar with the Gullah culture along the Carolina coasts, its unusual patois, the beautiful sweet grass baskets? You might do a little research into the area and its history. There's a Gullah cultural and educational center not far from Beaufort and Hilton Head, South Carolina—take a look at its website.
12. Overall, what do you think of this book? Is it a good read...a disappointing one? Did it hold your interest?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)