Today we will be discussing the first chapter. Next Wednesday we will discuss the remainder of the book. For the first book, I wanted as many as possible to get in on the discussion.
Lily is the fourteen year-old narrator of the book, and she lives on a peach farm in South Carolina with her father T. Ray. One night, a swarm of bees appears in Lily's bedroom, but when she brings T. Ray back to see them, they are gone. T. Ray makes gestures like she's crazy, and he threatens to make her kneel on grits if she wakes him up again.
In this chapter, Lily also talks about her memory of her mother's death. Lily was there when her mother and T. Ray were having a violent argument, and she has a vague memory of watching her mom grab a gun from the closet, drop it on the floor, and then go off as Lily picked it up. It's the only memory of her mother that she has. All Lily has to remember her mother by is an old photograph, a pair of white cotton gloves, and a small wooden picture of Mary, the mother of Jesus. On the back was written "Tiburon, SC".
One day, T. Ray comes to tell her what happened to her mother. He says that she was cleaning out a closet, and Lily says that she remembers the gun. T. Ray gets very upset and demands to know everything Lily knows, and she says that all she remembers is picking up the gun off the floor. T. Ray then confirms that Lily accidentally killed her own mother.
At one point, Lily falls asleep in the orchard with the artifacts from her mother. T. Ray finds her, thinks that she has been fooling around with a boy, and makes her kneel on grits for an hour as punishment. Rosaleen is another main character. She is a black worker in the orchard that T. Ray chooses to become Lily's caretaker. She watches President Johnson sign the Civil Rights Act and decides to go into town to register to vote. Lily goes along, and they eventually meet three racist men from town who give Rosaleen a hard time. In an act of defiance or stupidity, Rosaleen pours tobacco juice over their shoes. She gets arrested and she and Lily get taken to jail. - (summary found on the web)
What theme or themes surface in the first chapter? What do you find surprising?
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About Me
- David Michael
- Katy, Texas, United States
- Being a husband and a father is the greatest blessing in my life. I am also a Special Educator to students with an autism spectrum disorder.
1 comment:
Each chapter begins with a quote which gives a clue to the theme.
One common thread that runs through this chapter is the struggle for identity.
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