Posted: July 10th, 2015

Home

Home

Please type up your answers to these questions. Your responses should be a minimum of two sentences long but not longer than one complete paragraph. You are expected to use MLA format and to write well-written, focused, accurate answers. You do not need to use quotes. Please send them to your instructor by the due date. FOR QUESTIONS WITH MULTIPLE QUESTIONS WITHIN THEM, YOU NEED TO PREPARE ONE ANSWER THAT ADDRESSES ALL THE SUBQUESTIONS WITHIN IT–SO THINK OF ONE OVERARCHING ANSWER THEN DISCUSS THE SUBPOINTS FROM THERE.

1.  Why has Toni Morrison chosen Home for her title? In what ways is the novel about both leaving home and coming home?

2.  The race of the characters is not specified in the novel. How does Morrison make clear which characters are black and which are white? Why might she have chosen not to identify characters explicitly by their race?

3. How has Frank’s war experience affected him? What symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder does he exhibit? In what ways does he suffer from survivor guilt?

4. Why do the women who heal Cee have such contempt for “the medical industry”?  In what ways are Frank and Cee both victims of a medical system that puts its own aims above the heath of its patients? Does Home offer an implicit critique of our own health-care system?

5. What methods do Miss Ethel Fordham and the other women use to nurse Cee back to health? Why do they feel Frank’s male energy might hinder the healing process? What larger point is Morrison making about the difference between feminine and masculine, or earth-based and industrial, ways of treating illness?

6. How have Miss Ethel and the other women in her community learned not just to live with but to rise above the limitations imposed on them? What moral code do they live by?

7. Why does Frank decide to give a proper burial to the man killed for sport—and whose undignified burial Frank and Cee witnessed as children—at the end of the novel? Why would this act be emotionally important for him? Why has Morrison structured the novel so that the end mirrors the beginning?

8. Why is it important that Frank does not resort to violence against Dr. Beau? In what ways has Frank been changed by the experiences he undergoes in the novel?

9. Much has been written about racism in America. What does Home add to our understanding of the suffering blacks endured during the late 1940s and early 1950s?

10. What is most surprising, and distressing, about the story Morrison tells?

11. After watching Toni Morrison’s interview, please share your observations about the interview. What did it help you to understand about the historical context of the novel, in particular?(answer for this one should be 5~6 sentences.)

———–Require short responds for this two post————–
12 .In the interview, I liked how Toni Morrison emphasized the idea of thinking outside the box, of making something that’s common or typical and changing it to make something new. When I first read that the book was set in the 50s, I wasn’t sure what associated with that decade. Before the 50s was a joyous time in America, recovering from the great depression, but the 60’s and 70’s was a tough time of fighting for social change. Authors could write a story about a certain decade and assume the readers are already familiar, but I’m glad that Morrison chose the 50s because it makes it interesting that she wanted to bring out what she thought a lot of people didn’t know about. She said that the overarching theme of the 50s was the American Dream but there was also the impact of the Korean War, which she said wasn’t talked about or acknowledged as a war. It was also an age of anti-communism and a time of medical experimentation. Morrison had her characters living in the 50s but the personality of a vet and the themes of war, certain social issues and love are timeless. Morrison’s insight of how the towns were like in Georgia and what social and political pressures were evident gave me a better idea of what to possibly expect from Frank Money.

13. After watching Toni Morrison’s interview, I can tell that she is very passionate about her work and that she seems hesitate a lot when she tries to explain things. Other than that she explained clearly the background of her book Home. She talked about the war and how it affected people, especially the people in the war. America was doing medical experiments on soldiers, poor people and prisoners for medical reasons. What made me open my eyes was when she said that soldiers in during the Vietnam war were on LSD which I never knew about. Morrison talked about a lot of other things that I never knew about back in the 50s which was fascinating which makes me pretty excited to read the book.