Discussion Questions
1. You might talk about Morrison's treatment of flight and what it represents (i.e., both abandonment and freedom). Also consider how Morrison's use of flying places her work in the genre of magical realism.
2. Much of Morrison's work deals with the search for identity and particularly how savery degrades self-identity, strips it from the soul. You might talk about the importance of identity and how family history plays a role in defining the self. What does it mean to be without family history or self-knowledge?
3. Oppression is very much a motif in this work. You might talk about the kinds of oppression characters experience.
4. Characters have Biblical names, which relate them to a transcendant, universal pattern of experience, a pattern that surpasses time and place. Try to identify parallels with the old testament stories?
5. Discuss the role that songs play in this work...as a form of oral history.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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