Chapter Thirteen
Why is the IM attracted to the yams? What is the significance of his:
- claim that it is good just from looking at it, and the man’s advice to try it first
- choice to eat it while walking down the street (264)
- thoughts about shame and public actions (265)
- accusations about Bledsoe’s chitterling habit
- return to get more yams and claim that they are his “‘birthmark’” (266)
- why he doesn’t think that he will be able to enjoy the hot fried pies?
What does he find when he walks away after finishing his yams? How does it make him feel? (267-75)
What drives the IM to act? (270-75)
What are the points of the IM’s speech? Is it totally contradictory? Does he actually instigate the protest? (275-281)
Why does he keep repeating “‘we’re a law abiding people’” while people are trying to break the law? Does the phrase take on different meanings throughout his speech, particularly once people start to act (straight vs. sarcastic, etc)? See 275, 276, 277, 279, 281.
Why is he so surprised when the police show up (bottom of 282-284)?
Who do you think the people calling him “brother” are? See 282: When he asks them who they are, they answer “‘friends of allthe common people’” who “‘believe in brotherhood.’” Can you answer the IM’s own question – “Where had I heard of them?”
Did he mean to “‘mov[e] them to action,’” as the white woman claims on 284? See his reflections on 286.
What does he notice about the man who remarks on his speech? See 288-89.
What does the man mean about old people – both individuals and “‘types of men’” (291)? If old people are so bad, what does he mean when he tells the IM that he has become “‘capable of rising to the necessity of the historical situation’” because “‘History has been born in [his] brain’” (291).
Why does the man get frustrated by the IM’s comments on race (292)? Why does he claim that the IM cannot be “‘such an individualist as [he] pretend[s]”?
Chapter Fourteen
What causes the IM to rethink his rejection of the man’s offer? (296-98)
Where is the IM? Who are the people he is with?
If the Founder is not Booker T. Washington, who is he? (305-7) He “‘lies outside history’” while Washington “‘is still a living force’” (306). Is there a right and a wrong way to engage history? Brother Jack suggests that in “‘times of indecision when all the old answers are proven false, the people look back upon the dead to give them a clue.’” Do you think that this is the right approach, given his earlier disdain for old attitudes? There is “‘little the dead can do’” but they are not “‘absolutely powerless.’”
Why will Mary not do as a landlady (308-9)? Why is the IM given a new identity (309)?
What is the IM’s private attitude towards Booker T. Washington (311)?
What happens during the singing incident on 312-314? Why does the IM’s reaction dispel the tension – rendering them “‘an importance service which I couldn’t understand’” (314)?
What does dancing with Emma fulfill for the IM? Is he comfortable? Is this freedom? (314-15).
What does he admit that he dislikes about “people like Mary on 316-17?
No comments:
Post a Comment