Q: Is it ever frightening to breathe in the fear and pain?
A: Yes, it gets very scary. One night I thought I was dying because I felt as if a herd of horses was running over my heart. I made the decision to just stay with it, and keep breathing and relaxing my heart. I also accepted that they might just run over me and that I wouldn't get up. I'd die. As it turned out, my heart was O.K. It opened wide.
There are many ancient practices that we should avail ourselves of so that we can address whatever constrictions we might have. Buddhism has been especially helpful to me because it affirms the necessity for quiet; compassion over anger; being over doing. It encourages people to accept life in its totality, not just the good parts.
Q: I'm sure there are those who look at your life and your literary career and can't imagine that there are many bad parts.
A: The good parts are only really good because you have the bad parts. Otherwise, you wouldn't know the difference. You wouldn't be quite so appreciative of the good.
The bad times--and I've had my share--are almost invariably the places where I've learned crucial lessons. In fact, I'd say that the bad parts should be embraced more, even though you really don't feel like that when you're suffering.
After a while, you begin to see how the lessons come out of the bad, which makes you grateful for the pain you've endured. You learn to accept that one day you'll be famous, the next day infamous. One day you'll be rich, the next day poor. One day people will think you're great, the next day they'll think you're terrible. And this is just the stuff of life. Life is not bright, cheerful, and sunny all the time. The wise ones know this.
But this is the lesson that seems hardest for Westerners to understand. People think that when something goes "wrong," it's their fault. If only they had done something differently. But sometimes things go wrong to teach you what is right.
The way I see it, life is about growth, struggle, and trying to expand your love of self and of other people. Also to really try hard not to cause harm--to cultivate a way of life that is harmless. This is likely to take all your energy for your entire life. And if you harm some folks along the way, well, that's why the apology was born.
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. Why do you think Alice Walker chose to write this novel in the voices of several different narrators? Which character's story do you think is the center of the novel? Do you think the use of different voices interrupts the story or enriches it? Does the author succeed in making each voice distinctive? Give examples.
2. The novel underscores the potency of lies and hypocrisy. The web of deceit practiced by the Robinsons, the African American anthropologist couple posing as missionaries and who are unable to find funding for their study of the Mundo tribe, is particularly telling on this point. How does the irony of their masquerade as "puritanical Christians" play into the tragedy at the novel's center?
3. Alice Walker says the book "examines the way imposed religion almost always acts to inhibit and harden the hearts of those who would instinctively love." Is she referring to the rigid dogma of institutional religion and its condemnation of the pursuit of sensual pleasure? If so, what instances in this novel are used to explore this theme?
4. One recurring theme in the novel is the corruption of indigenous spiritual beliefs by Western civilization. How does Walker's handling of this idea affect the novel's storytelling?
5. The psychological approaches employed by both daughters to master the emotional trauma of Magdalena's beating illuminates the differences in their personalities. Why would Magdalena choose emotional repression and excesses of eating and drinking as her route to emotional comfort, instead of pursuing the more sexually experimental path of her sister, Susannah? Compare and contrast the two situations.
6. How responsible is Mr. Robinson for the life choices of his daughter? At what point does a child or adult become accountable for choices made in life despite parental miscues and the tragedies of the past? In what ways are these questions central to the novel?
7. Recalling the sexual conduct of the Robinsons and their daughters, can you conclude that sex possesses spiritual and redemptive qualities? Can it be used to heal emotional wounds and to enhance one's personal growth?
8. Some critics have interpreted Walker's statement of "celebrating one's sexuality" as one of this novel's key themes and an embrace of lesbianism and repudiation of traditional hetero-sexuality and patriarchal influences. Do you agree or disagree with this contention? If so, does Walker make an effective case to support this view?
9. How is the depiction of the Mundo tribe, with their celebration of sexuality, nature, and community, an essential element in highlighting the hypocrisy of the Robinsons and all they represent? How does this presentation of the tribe cause a conflict of faith and conscience for Mr. Robinson and his wife?
10. The theme of the abusive father, the healing, loving sexual relationship with another woman, and the quest of two sisters for emotional and spiritual liberation from the patriarchal oppression of a dominant male appears also in Walker's award-winning novel, The Color Purple. If you have read The Color Purple, explain how the plight of Celie and Nettie in this earlier novel is similar yet different from the dilemma of Magdalena and Susannah.
11. In The Color Purple, the theme of reclaiming one's sexual freedom as a major step in achieving sexual power, emotional wholeness, and spirital autonomy plays a critical part in the story. How do these same issues emerge in this later work? And what is their significance?
12. Why might some readers not be totally sensitive to Magdalena's self abuse and ultimate suicide by gluttony in the wake of the harsh childhood treatment by her father? Why might we be tempted to say, "Get off it and get on with your life"? And might not this attitude reflect our fear of examining the places we have been hurt and our lack of compassion for our own suffering?
13. Explain the importance of the following words of Manuelito, the Mundo tribesman: "It is understood that spirituality resides in the groin, in the sexual organs. Not in the mind, and not in the heart." In what ways does this statement reveal one of the major themes of the novel? And how comfortable are we when we discover that another culture's take on Existence or Meaning is entirely different than our own?
14. Susannah's marriage with Petros the Greek and her affair with Pauline serve as mirror images of the heroine's approach to finding spiritual and emotional growth and sexual satisfaction. How does the author set up the parallel of the two unions as portraits of Susannah's struggle for completion? Does her approach succeed?
15. Like the deeply wounded father, Mister, in The Color Purple, who becomes transformed and healed through the love of a child, Mr. Robinson, as an angel in the afterlife, becomes an agent for change and healing in this novel. Why is his intervention so crucial to Susannah's healing?
16. Some reviewers found that the author's use of spiritual realism draws attention away from the events and distances readers from the characters. Do you share their view? Why or why not?
17. Walker's novels often explore the usefulness of suffering. What is she saying with the statement: "Why is it that we can love so much that which only makes us cry?" How does this view apply to the Robinson daughters?
18. What is the irony of Manuelito, Magdalena's childhood lover, serving as Mr. Robinson's spirit guide? How does Manuelito's indigenous wisdom serve to temper the father's conservative "civilized" beliefs?
19. The pleasure in reading Walker's complex novels can be found in experiencing secondary characters such as the cigarette-smoking dwarf, Irene. What is the importance of Irene and her relationship with Susannah?
20. At the core of the novel is the pressing question of the treatment of daughters by fathers. What fuels the fears of fathers that their teenage daughters might develop their sexuality? Compare and contrast that treatment by fathers and its affect on young girls in later life with the treatment of boys and their emergence into manhood.
&n
bsp; 21. The repeating of the Mundo initiation song occurs often in the novel. Why is it important that Mr. Robinson learn and practice this song after he is dead? What do you think is the meaning of the verse:
Anyone can see that the sky is naked
and if the sky is naked
the earth must be
naked too.
ALSO BY ALICE WALKER
FICTION
Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart
The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart
Possessing the Secret of Joy
The Temple of My Familiar
The Color Purple
You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down Meridian
In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women
The Third Life of Grange Copeland
NONFICTION
Sent By Earth: A Message from the Grandmother Spirit
Anything We Love Can Be Saved
The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult
Warrior Marks (with Pratibha Parmar)
Living by the Word
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens
POEMS
A Poem Traveled Down My Arm
Her Blue Body Everything We Know
Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful
Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning
Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems Once
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for her novel The Color Purple. Her other novels include Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart, By the Light of My Father's Smile, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and In the Temple of My Familiar. She is also the author of three collections of short stories, three collections of essays, six previous volumes of poetry, including A Poem Traveled Down My Arm, and several children's books. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, Walker now lives in northern California.
Alice Walker, By the Light of My Father's Smile
(Series: # )
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