student questions - the longest memory

– Questions Questions The Longest Memory – Epigraphs

1. What is the meaning of the novel’s two epigraphs and how do they relate to the content and themes of the novel? Prologue: Remembering

2. What does the first line suggest about Whitechapel’s state of mind? How would you describe Whitechapel’s attitude to life in the prologue?

3. How is memory described on p. 2? What connection can you draw between this description of memory and memory experienced in Black in Black Diggers? Diggers? Chapter 1: Whitechapel

4. What words would you use to describe the conditions slaves live under? Choose three quotes. (pp. 3-8)

5. What words/phrases are used to describe the brutality of Chapel’s beating? (pp. 5-6).

6. How is Whitechapel characterised in the opening pages of this chapter? (pp. 311)

7. Why do you think D’Arguir chose to write Whitechapel from the 1 st-person point-of-view, and with such articulateness?

8. What is Whitechapel’s reasoning for punishing his son? (pp. 12 -15)

9. Briefly summarise the events that lead to the death of Chapel.

10. How is Whitechapel viewed by the other slaves after the death of Chapel (p. 26)?

11. How does Whitechapel now view his masters and his philosophy of compliance? (p.26)

Chapter 2: Mr. Whitechapel

Trusted by over 1 million members

Try Scribd FREE for 30 days to access over 125 million titles without ads or interruptions! Start Free Trial Cancel Anytime.



12. How does Mr. Whitechapel go against the stereotypical vie w of a brutal and callous slave owner? How does his words and actions also reinforce representations of the stereotypical slave owner? Against Stereotype

Reinforces Stereotype

13. What is Mr. Whitechapel’s view of Whitechapel? (p. 31-35) 31 -35)

14. In reference to slavery, Mr. Whitechapel states “What began as a single thread has, over the generations, woven itself into a prodigious carpet that cannot be unwoven…. Down that road lies chaos.” What does he mean? What is a similar line relating to the impossibility of reversing history in Black in Black Diggers? Diggers?

15. Find evidence of Mr. Whitechapel’s religious hypocrisy in the chapter.

Chapter 3: Sanders Senior

16. Contrast the structure and style of Sanders Senior’s chapter with that of Whitechapel. What do these differences suggest about Sanders Senior’s character?

17. How does his characterisation reinforce the view that all those who kept and managed slaves were brutal and callous?

18. What is Sanders Senior ’s view ’s view of Whitechapel?

19. How does Sanders Senior describe the two times he rapes Cook? (p. 45 and p. 46)? What does this suggest about his view of both slaves and women in general? Chapter 4: Cook



21. How does she view Whitechapel?

Chapter 5: Chapel

22. Chapel and Lydia represent many of the values that D’Arguiar endorses in the novel, values that provide a strong counterpoint to the brutality and callousness of slavery. Analyse the structure and style of Chapel’s chapter. What views and values are endorsed through this structure and style?

23. Beyond his style, what values do Chapel’s thoughts and actions embody?

24. How does Chapel view Whitechapel?

25. On p. 60, Chapel uses an allusion allusi on to Shakespeare’s Romeo Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet when when he states that he and Lydia are “star -crossed lovers.” What are the similarities between their story and Romeo and Juliet’s? What themes do both stories similarly explore?

26. What character in Black in Black Diggers is Chapel most like?

Chapter 6: Plantation Owners

27. This chapter represents a battle of values between Mr. Whitechapel’s more humane view of slavery verses the more callous approach of other slave owners. What are the different arguments? Mr. Whitechapel’s View of Slaves Slaves (often repeated by other plantation owners)

Other Slave Owner’s Views of Slaves

28. This chapter also gives two different views of Ch ristianity and its relation to slave ownership. What are they?

29. Besides being racist and hypocritical (in terms of Christian values), how else are the plantation owners characterised?



31. Why do the Plantation Owner’s praise Whitechapel (pp. 76-77)? 76 -77)? Does this, in your opinion, equate to “nobility”?

32. Why does D’Arguir D’Arguir use the second- person (“you”) point-of-view point-of-view in this chapter?

Chapter 7: Lydia

33. Choose two quotes that illuminate the joy that Chapel finds in being introduced to the world of words and the imagination. Chapter 8: Cook

34. We are positioned to empathise with Cook in this chapter. How does D’Arguir achieve this?

35. What does Cook suggest would be Whitechapel’s view of Chapel learning to read? (pp. 85-86)

Chapter 9: Lydia

36. Why do you think Mr. Whitechapel believes teaching Chapel to read would be “the gravest injustice”? (p. 88). Do you think there is some perverse truth to this? What is Lydia’s response to this?

37. What values does Lydia embody that are scarce in this world of Plantation owners and their families? How does her writing style reinforce these values?

38. What is Chapel’s view of his father? (p. 90)

39. We have seen memory being something traumatic in both texts. Yet memory is characterised as something s omething different between Lydia and Chapel (pp. 90-91). How is it characterised?



41. What words would you use to characterise Lydia and Chapel’s relat ionship in this chapter? What values do their relationship represent that are missing in the world of plantation owners and their families?

42. Research Shakespeare’s sonnet 19 (p. 96). Why do you think D’Aguiar alludes to it?

43. What is Chapel and Lydia’s only source of hope for the future of their relationship?

Chapter 11: The Virginian

44. Why do you think D’Arguiar includes a whole chapter of editorials?

45. What is revealed in these letters about the lives of slaves?

46. What arguments do the Virginians use to absolve themselves of t heir moral duty to treat slaves like humans?

47. What arguments counter these views and provide some hope for abolition?

48. What does the editorial on p. 121 suggest about the social pressure on the editor to maintain a certain racist viewpoint and ideology?

Chapter 12 : Great Grandmother

49. This chapter is from the point of view of Whitechapel’s Great Granddaughter. Why do you think D’Arguiar titled the chapter “Great Grandmother”?

50. What does “Africa” symbolise for her?

51. What does Whitechapel W hitechapel being “annoyed with his Great-Granddaughter Great-Granddaughter for dreaming” about about Africa suggest about his attitude to his life and his enslavement?



53. What happens to her “dream of Africa”? (p. 127).

Chapter 13: Sanders Junior

54. Was Whitechapel, in your view, a man that – that – as as Sanders Junior states – states – embodied “courage” (p. 134)?

55. What does Sanders Junior think about Chapel (his half-brother)? (p. 130)

56. What is the tone of Sanders Junior’s discussion of his killing of Chapel? Does it represent anger or guilt, or something else? Epilogue: Forgetting

57. How does Whitechapel before his death view his life, and the values he has lived by?

58. What do both texts, The Longest Memory and Black and Black Diggers suggest Diggers suggest about loyalty?

59. What does death mean for Whitechapel?

60. Do we ultimately sympathise with Whitechapel? Or condemn him?

61. Who or what do you think is mainly responsible for the death of Chapel?

student questions - the longest memory

Recommend Documents