"Gilead" - Character Relationships

Prompt #1 - Often we can learn a lot about a character through his relationship with another character or characters. Discuss a relationship you see between two characters in "Gilead" and what that relationship tells you about the characters and the novel as a whole.

The entire plot of "Gilead," this latest summer reading book, centers around the relationship between the narrator, John Ames, and his son, born late in his life. The narrator has been told that because of his failing heart, he doesn't have much longer to live, and therefore will not be present for the majority of his son's life. Because of this, he compiles everything he will never be able to tell his son into the novel, apparently as a letter, so that when he is no longer there he will be able to continue their father and son relationship.

There is another key father-son relationship in the novel, however. As John Ames recalls his childhood and early adulthood to his son, he focuses on the relationships between him and his father, and his father and his father's father. Not only do these relationships help us learn about John Ames, but also about his predecessors, and about the historical context to the novel. I think that also in sharing these stories with his son, who will never have the same kind of relationship with his father, whether that is good or bad, he is reminding him of the countless father-son relationships that came before them. Theirs is just another addition to the large compilation of stories in the world.

This book contrasts these father-son relationships, both good and bad, caring and not-so-caring. But even though all these relationships are different, there is still always the presence of love. Ames' grandfather was a man of war, who was said to have fired off his pistol on his way into the church to preach, while his father blatantly disagreed with his beliefs. Yet, still, Ames' father trekked across Kansas to find his father's grave, bringing his own son with him on a trip that is almost a death sentence. As Ames mentions, he learned most of what he knew about his father and grandfather's relationship through that trip, which in turn informed his own relationship with his father. Ames recounts the memory of his father scrounging for their food, of him sitting in the middle of the plains due to exhaustion and having to run and keep up. Whenever it was "supper time" his father would tell Ames a story - like the one with the soldiar who visited the church, with the grandfather returning with a pistol and two bloody shirts - in order to either accompany dinner or distract his son from the lack of it.

John Ames' experience with his father, and hearing his father's relationship with his own father, informs his character. Because of the rivalry between his father and his grandfather, it is fully probable that he made his own life decisions based on the lack of confrontation they would cause. His brother Edward decided to become atheist, upsetting their parents, and later Ames decided to join the church like his father before him. He becomes a different father because of his experiences and relationships, becoming more kind and considerate of his own son - he wrote him an entire book of stories and experiences, just so his son would have something to remember him by - through what he has gone through.

"Charming Billy" - Character and the Meaning of the Novel

Prompt #2 - Though Billy Lynch is the title character of the novel, "Charming Billy" presents several other well-rounded characters. Choose a character other than Billy and discuss the methods the author uses to create him/her. How does your character contribute to the meaning of the novel?

One character who I personally find interesting, intriguing, and connected to the meaning of Alice McDermott's novel "Charming Billy" is Matt West, the lover, fiance, and husband of the narrator. I find both the narrator - Dennis and Claire's daughter - and Matt to be incredibly interesting characters because we know so little about them, yet they are a part of what propels the story. McDermott only provides us with their characterization in bits and pieces. Our first glimpse of Matt is only a leather bracelet on a thin wrist, and most of what we know about the narrator is pieced together from her stories, her father's life, the questions people ask her when she's at Maeve's house after the funeral.

The way Matt is told to us is only really through other's stories, the same way Billy is. These two characters are connected in that way, even though their plots barely intertwine. The only scene they share is when Mr. West comes to pick things up from the shed behind the summer house, and Matt extends a hand out the car window, Billy sitting on the front step. This is their only interaction, yet they still manage to be undoubtedly linked. Not only does Matt marry Billy's cousin's daughter, making him a part of the far-branching family, but both of these characters revolve around the beach house. A quote near the end of the book reflects this, what part Matt plays in the main theme, and in Billy's story. It says, "It was, in those days, the way we all spoke about love: world-wise, open-eyed, without illusion. Lying, of course. Because what we truly believed in that moment - would believe on and off again for the rest of our lives - was that the whole history of Holtzman's little house - from its bankrupt builder to my grandmother's greed to your parents' bitter marriage - was, on this night, with our own meeting, redeemed." This idea that all the love - or the variations and avoidance of love - has been channeled into this house is what I believe to be a driving force in "Charming Billy." This house is where Billy met Eva, where Dennis and Mary's affair went awry. Even its resurrection was based off of the business-like marriage between Sheila and Holtzman. It makes sense that at the end of the book, with this end of an era and the final piece in the narrators puzzle.

"Charming Billy" - Engaging the Reader

Prompt #1: One of the author's goals at the beginning of a novel is to fully engage her reader. Select a passage from the first half of "Charming Billy" that you found particularly interesting and explain how you think it contributes to engaging the reader in the novel.

Alice McDermott's novel "Charming Billy" doesn't seem as much a novel as a compilation of life stories. Part of what makes this novel so vivid and enthralling is the way the author constructs her characters, and constructs their lives around each other. In the middle of these intertwined stories is Billy, the titular character, whose funeral introduces us to the world these characters live in. Billy is the spine of the entire book, while Dennis and Sheila and Eva and Mary and Holtzman are the limbs, branching off in every direction from this one central point. These stories are all connected through the reminiscing of times gone past after this main character has passed away, as told through the eyes of a narrator we barely know.

One passage that resonated with me was during the first chapter, when they were still sitting around the table reminiscing, and McDermott writes, "Billy had drunk himself to death. He had, at some point, ripped apart, plowed through, as alcoholics tend to do, the great, deep, tightly woven fabric of affection that was some part of the emotional life, the life of love, of everyone in the room."

I didn't realize, until going back and searching for the quote that first engaged me in this novel, how much this quote represents what the entire book is about. This quote, and this book, are about Billy, but also about the creation of this "fabric of affection" that he will later destroy. We need to first learn about his relationship with Dennis, or with Eva, in order for it to be more devastating when these relationships are destroyed. I think that this is part of what makes the book complex, and what makes it interesting for someone to read. We know from the very beginning that Billy is dead, and how he died, and the rest of his life is out of order, until, I predict, a whole picture of Billy is revealed.

I think the multiple dimensions and motivations in all the characters also contributes to entrancing the audience, since, everywhere you look, you can find something you relate to. Even though some readers may not have faced the struggles of having to bring relatives over from Ireland, or fighting in the trenches of World War II, they can still find themselves in Billy's anguish over losing Eva, Sheila's desperate craving for security, or Dennis' agonizing grief. The narrator, too, provides us with a way into the story. Just like us, she is an outsider looking in,

I look forward to seeing how this novel progresses, and hope that, now that Alice McDermott has entrapped us in "Charming Billy," the rest of the story can be unveiled.

"The Scarlet Letter" - Character and Motivation

Prompt #2 - Choose one of the three main characters and discuss his/her motivations throughout the novel. What is the final outcome for the character you are discussing, and what does the outcome suggest to the reader?

Hester Prynne, throughout the novel "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is motivated in her actions by the presence of the scarlet A, and her daughter, Pearl, who she genuinely starts to believe is the human embodiment of her punishment. Even though Hester attempts to do good deeds for others in her Puritan community and uses her skills as a seamstress to make a good living for herself, she is constantly living under the shadow of her past deed. Her daily reminders of her single sin are a constant motivator for her as the plot begins the thicken.

Hester, like all those living under the Puritan rules and regulations, finds most of her life centering around the church, even more so now that she has been shunned by it. Her isolation from the people of Boston and the religious figures is represented in her own geographic isolation. Her only salvation comes through her seamstress work, and her daughter, Pearl. This gives her both a reason to live and a permanent torment, and throughout the book Hester must struggle with balancing the joy she receives from them and  the guilt she feels for not living a life of complete modesty. This mixture of feelings is what motivates her in a pivotal point of the book, when she must go to Governor Bellingham and plead to keep Pearl in her possession.

Governor Bellingham and the rest of the upper class white men dictating how society must be run decide that Hester Prynne, the adulteress, can no longer keep her daughter if she is to have any hope for a good future. Hester must go to them, pleading, to explain how her daughter is just a human version of the scarlet A. This can't be an easy moment for Hester - in the very beginning of the book, she was motivated by her pride and anger at those who judged her without really knowing her, and now she must admit to these people that they have succeeded in making her life miserable. But motivated through her love for her daughter and for, as we later find out, her loyalty to Dimmesdale, she can overcome these barriers, admit that she believes Pearl to be a spirit sent by God to punish her, earn the guardianship of her child, and resist the urge of witchcraft.

"The Scarlet Letter" - Setting, Social Conditions, and Customs

Prompt #1 - Setting includes more than just time and place. It also concerns social conditions and customs of a given location and time period. Discuss the setting of "The Scarlet Letter" and how it contributes to your understanding of the book so far.

The setting of "The Scarlet Letter" is revealed throughout the first chapters of the book, through both Nathaniel Hawthorne's physical descriptions, and the way his characters act and interact with each other. How his characters treat the protagonist of the novel, Hester Prynne, sets the setting surrounding her and the expectations placed on her for the rest of the book. The first few chapters of the novel are dedicated to educating the audience about social conditions and customs of Puritan-era Boston through the characters gathered around the prison door at the beginning of Chapters 1 and 2. The situation of Hester Prynne at the beginning of the novel is revealed throughout the following couple chapters.

Chapter 1, though very brief, is what starts to establish the setting. It gives us a physical description of the Boston prison as well as giving some background of the time period and the customs of incoming settlers in the New World. Most of this short chapter is dedicated to describing the need for a new settlement to set aside land for both a prison and a cemetery, a social custom that gives our first hint at what life must have been like. When law and order is so ingrained in a society that one of the first buildings they erect is a place to keep the "sinners" or the "damned," it creates a whole new backdrop for crime and punishment, and the Puritanical setting of "The Scarlet Letter." These people, especially these women, who Hawthorne says are, "[standing] within less than half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had  been the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex," are influenced by the rigid monarchy and religious orders they follow. These same factors that influence these strong, independent women are demonstrated in the setting in the moments before Hester Prynne is condemned to walk to and stand on the platform, bearing the scarlet A for all to see. Everyone's reaction to Hester's situation is mostly derived from their fear of God and strong opinions on religion. Rather then having concern for Hester, or her child who has been condemned for doing nothing wrong, the women in front of the prison wonder about how this will influence the "God-fearing gentlemen" or "Reverend Master Dimmesdale's congregation."

These social customs and deeply set morals are what have shaped the world Hester has been condemned to live in. She remarks that her first steps leaving the prison, not the ones walking to the scaffold, were the hardest, since she knows they only mark a lifetime of similar shameful steps, brought on by the expectations and people surrounding her. She is sent off to another setting, a small, remote cottage, which demonstrates the society-imposed isolation she finds herself living under. It's ironic, really, how as the book goes on these harsh conditions of the time period are only pinned to Hester Prynne, who tries to do good, instead of the other members of the Puritan community. At one point in Chapter 5, it says, "except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them." So, while the harsh expectations, social conditions, and customs set in place in the beginning of the novel are what create the setting of "The Scarlet Letter," throughout the book this may be open to change and interpretation based on which characters are being held up to this original moral standard.