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 Zorro:
1. Allende reshapes the legend of Zorro, creating a back story to explain his action-hero life. Talk about the ways in which Zorro's history—family lineage and upbringing—lead to his strong sense of justice. Who and/or what played the most important role in his development?
2. Do a little research into the various incarnations of Zorro— from the original story by Johnston McCulley in the early 20th century to the film and tv versions played by Douglas Fairbanks, Guy Williams, Anthony Hopkins, and most recently Antonio Banderas. How is Allende's version different from—or similar to—the earlier Zorros?
3. In what way is Zorro an archetype of a romantic champion for the oppressed? What other figures in history, literature and film, religion, or mythology does Zorro resemble? What makes this such an enduring character in our culture and psyche?
4. How do you see Allende's creation of Zorro? Is her Zorro a one dimensional, swashbuckling hero? Or is he more complex, containing the human contradictions of passion vs. rationality, darkness vs. light?
5. What role does Bernardo play in this novel? Is he a typical sidekick...or something more important? How would you describe him?
6. What about the two sisters, Julia and Isabel? In what ways are they different from one another. Who was your favorite/ least favorite?
7. How does Allende represent women in this work? In what way does she insert 21st-century feminism into an a narrative set in the late 18th century?
8. Talk about the injustices, as portrayed by Allende, in 18th-century California—particularly the treatment of native Americans at the hands of the European settlers.
9. Were you surprised by the narrator's identity at the end...or had you figured it out? How trustworthy is the narrator as a teller of truth? Why might Allende have chosen this particular character to tell Zorro's story?
10. As the Bookmarks review (see above) suggests: some critics see this book as both an entertaining adventure/action story and serious literature. Other reviewers have dismissed this work as an over-the-top melodrama—even the narrator wryly observes at one point that a story like this needs a formidable villain like Rafael Moncada. What's your opinion?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
top of page (summary)