Great Santini (Conroy)

Book Club Discussion Questions 

Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Great Santini: 

1. The most obvious place to start is with Bull Meecham. Describe the kind of a man he is...as a father and husband ...as well as a military commander? What "code," or set of beliefs, does he operate under?

2. What is Bull Meecham's affect on his family, particularly his son Ben? Is it possible to love such a man as Bull? Does Bull love his family?

3. Talk about those times that Meecham can be endearing and the other times he is cruel? Recall, especially, the basketball game between Ben and his father?

4. Talk about Lillian Meecham and her relationship with her husband and children, especially with Mary Anne? What role does she play in the dysfunctional household? Would you describe her as a passive southern belle?

5. What role does school play in young Ben's life? What does it provide him with that his family, especially his father, cannot?

6. Conroy has said that "one of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family." Care to comment on that?

7. Ben defies his father to help a friend. Ultimately, who is more of a man in the Meecham household—young Ben or his father? In fact, what does it mean to be "a man"?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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