The following are questionnaires that I devised to use with my own classes and would welcome others to use them as well. 

THE HANDMAID’S TALE

Margaret Atwood

QUESTIONNAIRE

Night

1.      Describe the setting.

2.      What are the tenets taught by the Aunts?

3.      What is a handmaid?

4.      What are Angels?

5.      How does the handmaid feel about her old life?

6.      Define Aunt.

7.      In just this short section, what is Atwood saying about women?

Shopping

8.      Our narrator states, “Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.”  Why?

9.      What colour is associated with handmaids?

10.  With whom does the handmaid live?

11.  What are Marthas?

12.  What colour is associated with the marthas?

13.  What is a Guardian?

14.  What colour is associated with the wife?

15.  What are the wives’ duties?

16.  What is ironic about the wife’s former name?

17.  What is an Eye?

18.  Who is Ofglen?

19.  Who wears white?

20.  What have you learned about the narrator’s past life?

21.  Discuss this quote:  “There is more than one kind of freedom…Freedom to and freedom from.  In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to.  Now you are being given freedom from.  Don’t underrate it.”  (24)

22.  What is a habit?

23.  Who does the narrator miss from the Red Centre?

24.  What is a compubite?

25.  What questions are being raised?

26.  What is the Wall?

Night

27.  What are handmaids not allowed to do?

28.  What do we learn about the narrator’s past?

29.  What happened to her child?

Waiting Room

30.  Who have they been killing and placing on the wall?

31.  Who are Econowives?

32.  What is the following quotation:  “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (44)?

33.  Why do handmaids hold the future?

34.  How long do the housemaids get in each posting?

35.  What are outlawed sects?

36.  What does the doctor suggest to help the handmaid?

37.  What are the Colonies?

Nap

38.  How does the handmaid view her body?

39.  How long has it been since she has seen her child?

40.  Why is the handmaid tattooed and what memory does this evoke in the handmaid?

41.  Why is having menstruation a problem?

42.  What else do we learn about the Centre?

43.  Why does she find it difficult to nap?

Household

44.  Why does the cushion give the narrator a sense of power?

45.  How do the evenings of the Ceremony differ?

46.  What does the anchorman tell them?

47.  What is the handmaid’s name and why?

48.  Describe the Commander.

49.  What were the Beatitudes?

50.  What words were left behind in the cupboard?

51.  In this society, how do they view sex?

52.  What does the putting on of the butter symbolize?

Night

53.  Luke told the narrator that it was lack of ___________ from which we die.

54.  What do we learn about Luke?

55.  What does the narrator believe?

Birth Day

56.  Offred uses litanies to compose herself.  What are several of them?

57.  What is the Red Birthmobile?

58.  What is the Blue Birthmobile?

59.  What is a shredder?

60.  If the handmaid gives birth, what happens to the men?

61.  Why does Aunt Lydia say if will be easier for women in the next generation?

62.  How does what she remember connect to her life today?

63.  What was the narrator’s mother like?

64.  What happens to Ofwarren?

65.  What happened to Moira?

66.  What does the Commander want from Offred?

67.  Why does Offred let the Commander win the second game?

Night

68.  What did Aunt Lydia teach the women about men?

69.  She realizes she can barter.  Why?

70.  What does she say to herself every night?

Soul Scrolls

71.  How does she know when to meet the Commander?

72.  Why are Marthas afraid to retire?

73.  Why does Offred feel as though she is filching?

74.  When it is empty, why is the wall foreboding?

75.  Define Women’s Salvaging.

76.  What are Soul Scrolls?

77.  How would you describe the Compubank?

78.  What does “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” mean?

79.  What does Offred realize?

80. When she found Offred on the floor, why did Cora scream?

The Shipping News  Annie Proulx

Chapter One - Quoyle

1. Who is Quoyle and what do we find out about him?
2. Who is Partridge?
3. Explain the quote:  “Eyes half closed, head tipped back in a light trance, he could cite baseball statistics as the ancients unreeled The Iliad.”  (Page 6)
4. What did Punch notice about Quoyle?
5. Partridge unveils the theme of the novel.  What is it?  (Page 10)
6. Explain the statement:  “He was waiting for his to begin.”  (Page 11)

Chapter Two – Love Knot

1. What kind of love knot does Petal represent for Quoyle?
2. Explain the allusion:  “In another time, another sex, she would have been a Genghis Khan.”  (Page 13)
3. Why does Petal bring other men home?

Chapter Three – Strangle Knot

1. Why did Quoyle’s parents take their own lives?
2. Quoyle says of Petal:  “I never really knew her…except that she was driven by terrible forces.”  (Page 23)  Explain what Quoyle means.
3. How do Bunny and Sunshine differ?
4. What was Quoyle’s grandfather like?
5. What happened to Petal?
6. Why does the aunt stay with Quoyle and his two daughters?

Chapter Four – Cast Away

1.       “As you get older you find out the place where you started out pulls at you stronger and stronger.”  (Page 29)  Explain this statement by the aunt.

2.       Why does Quoyle decide to leave?

3.       How does Partridge help Quoyle?

4.       Explain the quote:  “He needed something to brace against.”  (Page 31)

5.       What did the aunt first think to do with Guy’s ashes?

Chapter Five – A Rolling Hitch

1. Why is the following appropriate for Quoyle?  “ ‘I hate you, Dad!  You’re dumb!’ She leaned forward and hit Quoyle on the back of the head.” 
2. Describe Quoyle’s ancestral home.
3. How did Quoyle explain Petal’s absence from the children’s lives?
4. What had driven aunt from the home the first time?
5. What does Bunny see that others do not?

Chapter Six – Between Ships

1. Why didn’t Quoyle want to get a boat?
2. What does the aunt do for a living?
3. Why did Quoyle want “Storm and peril.  Difficult tasks.  Exhaustion.” ?  (Page 50)
4. Explain why Quoyle thought:  “Didn’t want them to grow up timid.”  (Page 51)
5. Explain the last two paragraphs of this chapter.  What does this say about human nature?

Chapter Seven – Gammy Bird

1. Why is this an appropriate name for the paper?
2. How does Billy Pretty describe Quoyle’s family?  (Page 58)
3. List the people that work at the newspaper and explain their duty.
4. Jack Buggit is the voice of many Newfoundlanders and Canadians.  Explain why he is angry on page 65.  Do you agree or disagree with his reasoning?
5. Buggit’s life is an excellent example of learning by doing.  Explain.

Chapter Eight – A Slippery Hitch

1. The aunt says:  “We face up to awful things because we can’t go around them, or forget them.  The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you say ‘Yes, it happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it,’ the sooner you can get on with your own life.”  Is this true?

Chapter Nine – The Mooring Hitch

1. Who is Diddy Shovel and how does he help Quoyle?
2. Explain why Jack didn’t want his children to be fishers?
3. Explain the irony of Quoyle’s statement:  “Can’t go wrong for fifty bucks, can I!”  (Page 86)

Chapter Ten – The Voyage of Nutbeem

1. Who is Warren and what happened to him?
2. What do we learn about Jack Buggit?

Chapter Eleven – A Breastpin of Human Hair

1. Where do Guy’s ashes come to rest?
2. Quoyle wants to make “Some part of this place as his own.” (Page 105)  What does this tell us about him?
3. How do we know that Quoyle is a loving father?

Chapter Twelve – The Stern Wave

1. Explain the last quote of this chapter by the aunt. 

Chapter Thirteen – The Dutch Cringle

1. Who is Wavey Prowse and what does Quoyle think about her?
2. Who are Bayonet and Silver Melville? 
3. What does Quoyle suspect Silver of doing?
4. What new information does Quoyle learn about his own aunt?

Chapter Fourteen – Wavey

1. What do we find out about aunt and the original Warren?
2. How do we know Quoyle’s children have him wrapped around their fingers?  (Page 126)
3. Explain the statement:  “ I suppose I’m getting old now, though I don’t feel it.”  (Page 127)
4. What did both Wavey and Quoyle wear?  What did they know about each other?
5. What difference does Quoyle note between Petal and Wavey?

Chapter Fifteen – The Upholstery Shop

1. Explain Quoyle’s concerns about Bunny.
2. The aunt says:  “…she is sensitive in a way the rest of us aren’t.  Tuned in to things we don’t get.  There’s people here like that.”  (Page 134)  Do you agree with the aunt or not?  Why or why not?
3. The aunt also says, “We learn how to disguise our differentness as we grow up.”  (Page 134)  How does the aunt know this first hand?  Is this true?  Think of other examples to share.
4. This chapter ends with an ironic twist.  Explain it.

Chapter Sixteen – Beety’s Kitchen

1. Explain why Quoyle’s relationship with Dennis and Beety help him “become more of a father”.
2. “Quoyle knew how that was.”  Explain this statement.  (Page 138)
3. What does Jack do on the days he’s not at work?
4. What did Skipper Alfred give to Bunny?

Chapter Seventeen – “The Shipping News”

1. What does Quoyle experience for the very first time?

Chapter Eighteen – Lobster Pie

1. Describe Herry.
2. Although Quoyle is thirty-six, how does he seem when he’s getting dressed to meet Wavey?  What does this tell us about human nature?
3. At the end of the chapter, we learn a little about everyday enjoyment in Newfoundland.  What is it?

Chapter Nineteen – Good-bye, Buddy

1. What does Tert Card’s column tell us about Newfoundland and small ports.  Is this a stereotype or does it exist for a reason?

Chapter Twenty – Gaze Island

1. What does Quoyle learn about his family?
2. Quoyle ponders over his father’s ashes and thinks perhaps there should be a marker.  What is ironic about this?
3. Fishers believe “…didn’t have any money, the sea was dangerous and men were lost, but it was a satisfying life in a way people today do not understand.”  Explain this quote.  (Page 169)
4. “Used to say there was four women in every man’s heart.  The Maid in the Meadow, the Demon Lover, the Stouthearted Woman, the Tall and Quiet Woman.”  (Page 171)  Of the women in Quoyle’s life, where do they fit?

Chapter Twenty-One – Poetic Navigation

1. What do Billy and Quoyle find?

Chapter Twenty-Two  - Dogs and Cats

1. Why does the author include Dawn in the novel?
2. How are Quoyle and Wavey getting along?

Chapter Twenty-Three – Maleficium

1. Who is the old man?
2. What do we, the reader, suspect him of doing?

Chapter Twenty-Four – Berry Picking

1. What time of year is it?
2. Explain:  “A sense of purity renewed, a sense of events in trembling balance flooded him.”  (Page 196)

Chapter Twenty-Five – Oil

1. How does Pretty describe what is happening to Newfoundland?
2. Do you agree or disagree with Pretty’s point of view on the following matter?  “Nobody, nobody in their right mind would go back to them hard, hard times.  People was only kind because life was so dirty you couldn’t afford to have any enemies.  It was all swim or all sink.  A situation that makes people very sweet.”  (Page 200)

Chapter Twenty-Six – Deadman

1. Of what does Quolye dream?  Why
2. What does Quoyle find?
3. What happens to Quoyle?
4. Who saves him?
5. What does this tell us about Jack?

Chapter Twenty-Seven – Newsroom

1. Explain:  “Jack’s uncanny sense about assignments.”
2. Explain the simile of ducks in relation to Wavey’s and Quoyle’s relationship.

Chapter Twenty-Eight – The Skater’s Chain Grip

1. Who abused the aunt?
2. How do we know Quoyle is changing?
3. Who paid the aunt?

Chapter Twenty-Nine – Alvin Yark

1. Who is Alvin and for what is he well known?

Chapter Thirty – The Sun Clouded Over

1. Explain:  “If life was an arc of light that began in darkness, ended in darkness, the first part of his life had happened in ordinary glare.  Here it was as though he had found a polarized lens that deepened and intensified all seen through it.  Thought of his stupid self in Mockingburg, taking whatever came at him.  No wonder love had shot him through the heart and lungs, caused internal bleeding.”  (Page 241)
2. Who left the string of knots for Quoyle and his family?

Chapter Thirty-One – Sometimes You Just Lose It

1. What does Nutbeem see as Newfoundland’s specialty?
2. Where does Nutbeem want to go?
3. Why is this helpful for Quoyle?

Chapter Thirty-Two – The Hairy Devil

1. What is screech?
2. Is Quoyle’s view of a party apt?
3. Who is the hairy devil?
4. Why did Quoyle leave the party?
5. What happened to Nutbeem’s boat?

Chapter Thirty-Three – The Cousin

1. What type of parties are Newfoundlanders used to throwing?
2. On page 262, Quoyle is happy with Sunshine’s drawing.  He kisses her temple “aware of the crouching forces that would press her to draw broccoli trees with brown bark.”  Do you think Quoyle has analyzed the situation well?
3. Why does Quoyle go to visit the old cousin?
4. What does he think about him?
5. Alvin says, “Each one is different, like men and women, some good, some not so good.”  Explain. (Page 266)
6. How does Nutbeem explain not wanting to go to another party?  Do you believe this actually works?

Chapter Thirty – Four – Dressing Up

1. Why didn’t Quoyle like Christmas?
2. Who surprised Quoyle most during the Christmas play?  Why?
3. When Quoyle goes to visit the old cousin, how does he find him?

Chapter Thirty-Five – The Day’s Work

1. Explain the quote:  “By January it had always been winter.”  (Page 284)
2. How does Quoyle’s job change?
3. What are the two ways of living in Newfoundland as explained by Buggit?
4. What are Quoyle’s first two initials?
5. What did the police bulletin say that Quoyle sent his aunt?

Chapter Thirty-Six – Straitjacket

1. Which riots were being referred to by Partridge?
2. Why is the following statement ironic?  “’Well known how violent it is in the States.  Worst you’ll get here,’ said Jack, ‘is a good punch-up and maybe your car pushed off the cliff.’”  (Page 291)
3. “We lives by rules made somewhere else by sons a bitches don’t know nothin’ about this place.”  How do you feel about this quote?
4. Why does Quoyle like going to the movies?
5. What does Quoyle learn about his aunt?

Chapter Thirty-Seven – Slingstones

1. What do we learn about Bunny from the incident at school?
2. How would you treat this incident?
3. What do we learn about Herold?
4. Explain Quoyle’s thought:  “That he was wondering if love came in other colors than the basic black of none and the red heat of obsession?” (Page 309)
5. How did Quoyle match up Billy’s father’s verse with his own life?  (Page 310)
6. Why is the chapter entitled “Slingstones”?

Chapter Thirty-Eight – The Sled Dog Driver’s Dream

1. Explain Quoyle’s question:  “Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets passed around from which one might choose more than once?  Some might sting the tongue, some invoke night perfume. …. Another that brought calm and gentle pleasure.  Were his fingers closing on that one?”  (Page 315)
2. What does Bunny get in this chapter?
3. What did the cousin conjure?
4. What does the daughter envision?  What does this tell us about her?
5. What happened to put the Quoyles on the move again?
6. Why does it seem appropriate that both the aunt and Quoyle realize that it is time to separate their connection?

Chapter Thirty-Nine – Shining Hubcaps

1. Quoyle doesn’t want Dennis and Beety to move.  Why not?
2. How do we know that Dennis is quite a bit like Jack?
3. What has happened to Jack?
4. Why does Wavey believe that Quoyle should explain death to his girls?
5. Why does Dennis believe that Jack will sign over his lobster license?
6. “Wavey saw the questions would come for a long time, that the child was gauging the subtleties and degrees of existence.”  Explain.   (Page 335)
7. What are your comments about the ending of this novel?

LOSING EDDIE

Deborah Joy Corey

            QUESTIONS AND QUOTES

SISTER

1. Why is this chapter entitled sister?

2. What do we learn about her?

3. Who is the narrator?

4. What do we learn about her?

5. Who’s Lydia and what do we learn about her?

6. Who is Bucky and what do we learn about him?  What is his nickname?

7. What do we learn about Daddy?

8. What does the narrator mean by:  “When I hear her talk about staying forever,

       I shrink into my body.” (Corey, p.6) ?

9. Why isn’t Eddie at home?

10. Why is the narrator’s kazoo important?

11. What does Sister’s husband do that is so frightening?

WOMAN TALK

1. Who is Marilyn Morris and what does the term blood sister mean?

2. How do we know that the narrator is very young?  Give three examples of behavior that

      allows us to know this.

3. Why is Lydia different from her daughters?

4. Sister says, “Things are changing now, they have to.” (Corey, 21)  Is this true?

5. Explain why adults always say that children repeat what they hear.  Explain the humor.

6. Explain “’But that’s woman’s talk,’ Mama says.  It’s not for girls.’” (Corey, 27)

7. What behavior does the sister display at the end of the chapter?  Why?

EDDIE

1. What does the narrator wonder about Sister’s husband?

2. What does the reference to “The Friendly Giant” tell us?

3. Where has Eddie been and why?

4. Why does the father buy Eddie a guitar and why does the mother make him supper?

5. Sister’s husband believes that he will stop drinking and become reformed because he is employed.

            What do you think will happen?

6. Explain this quote by the narrator.  “I imagine her as a cooing bird flying straight into a window

      she doesn’t even know is there.”  (Corey, 38)

7. Explain.  “I want to get out quick so their fighting won’t get in me.” (Corey, 40)

8. Why does the narrator play her kazoo?

9. What has alcohol done to this family?

A BLUE BIKE

1. How do we know that Daddy is not doing well with all of the events happening in his family?
2. Why does the narrator believe that she was given a new bike?
3. Why did she not ask for the kitten right away?
4. Why didn’t she get a new kitten?
5. Explain the statement:  “Like a lot of things, there’s nothing to explain why they do it.” (p. 134)
6. Why is the father feeling overwhelmed?
7. Explain why it is often said that adults can be thankful for the wonderful generosity of youth?
8. What does the last sentence of this chapter mean?

GOOD INTENTIONS

1. Is Mrs. Morris ready to die?  How do we know if this is so?
2. How do we know that the narrator is maturing?
3. How has discipline changed over the years?
4. Explain the simile that “mothers are like churches.”
5. Why doesn’t Marilyn want the narrator to go home?
6. What are several of the good intentions mentioned in this chapter?

PAPER BRUISES

1. Explain what the paper bruises are and how they came about?
2. Why does the narrator confide in Bucky?
3. When Mama was in the hospital, why couldn’t the narrator see her mother’s face?
4. How does the narrator reveal that she has insight into how Marilyn is feeling?
5. At the end of this chapter, why is the narrator not sure that she wants a husband?

A PRIVATE PLACE TO BE

1. Name several reasons why the father took his family to a private lake.
2. Why is the reader not totally surprised with the mother’s miscarriage?
3. What happened to Bucky?
4. How was the reaction of the narrator not a surprise?

THE GOLDENROD FIELD

1. Why does the narrator go to visit Mrs. Harris? 
2. Why is the name of this chapter appropriate?
3. Why isn’t it hard for the narrator to picture the lady in the nursing home as someone’s mama?

MY DAY

1. What happened on the narrator’s tenth birthday?
2. What is Marilyn’s gift to the narrator?  What does this really provide for her?
3. Why is Audrey’s gift touching?
4. The narrator realizes that her mama’s eyes are changing.  How?

THE SPARROW

1. What do some teacher’s abuse (I do not mean students)?
2. What is the narrator’s name?
3. What does the incident with the sparrow reveal to the reader?