Discussion Questions – “For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf”

Book Summary:

The book was inspired by Shange’s play titled For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf. Shange’s work was only the second by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway in 1975. For Colored Girls is a mixture of poetry, music, and dance. The piece consists of seven women who perform twenty poems examining gender, abuse, love, and self-esteem.

Discussion Questions:

1. In “graduation nite”, the speaker loses her virginity in a Buick the same night as her high school graduation. How does her ecstatic embrace of adulthood in lines “we waz grown we waz finally grown” hint at both her innocence and its loss (page 23)?
2. How does the end of an affair narrated by the lady in red in “no assistance”, capture the pathos of a romantic break-up: “this note is atached to a plant/i’ve been watering since the day i met you/ you may water it/ yr damn self” (page 28)?
3. How does the author’s juxtaposition of a poem about rape, “lantent rapist” (page 31-35), with a poem about abortion, “abortion cycle #1” (page 36-37), highlight the sexual vulnerabilities and dangers faced by many of her female speakers?
4. In the poem, “pyramid”, about three girlfriends and the one man they all desire – “we all saw him at the same time/& he saw us” -how would you characterize the author’s depiction of female friendship (pages 53-56)? How does the male romantic interest in “pyramid” compare with the author’s other depictions of boys and men in For Colored Girls?

“For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf: A Chorepoem.” 2010. Book & Authors Gale. Web. 19 Mar. 2011.

Fahrenheit 451’s Discussion Questions from the Big Read

1. Montag comes to learn that “firemen are rarely necessary” because “the public itself stopped reading of its own accord.” Bradbury wrote his novel in 1953: To what extent has his prophecy come true today?
2. Clarisse describes a past that Montag has never known: one with front porches, gardens, and rocking chairs. What do these items have in common, and how might their removal have encouraged Montag’s repressive society?
3. “Don’t ask to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library,” Faber tells Montag. “Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, as least die knowing you were headed for shore.” How good is this advice?
4. One of the most significant of the many literary allusions in Fahrenheit 451 occurs when Montag reads Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach.” What is the response of Mildred’s friends, and why does Montag kick them out of his house?
5. It may surprise the reader to learn that Beatty is quite well read. How can Beatty’s knowledge of and hatred for books be reconciled?
6. Unlike Mrs. Hudson, Montag choose not to die in his house with his books. Instead he burns them, asserting even that “it was good to burn” and that “fire was best for everything!” Are thres choices and sentiments consistent with his character? Are you surprised that he fails to follow in her footsteps?
7. Beatty justifies the new role of firemen by claiming to be “custodians of [society’s] peace of mind, the focus [the] understandable and righ dread of being inferior.” What does he mean by this, and is there any sense that he might be right?
8. How does the destruction of books lead to more happiness and equality, according to Beatty? Does his lecture to Montag on the rights of man sound like any rhetoric employed today?
9. Why does Montag memorize the Old Testament’s Ecclesiastes and the New Testaments’s Revelation? How do the final two paragraphs of the novel allude to both biblical books?
10. Are there any circumstances where censorship might play a beneficial role in soceity? Are there some books that should be banned?
11. If you had to memorize a single book or risk its extinction, which book would you choose?

from the National Endowment for the Arts