My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead (Eugenides) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
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Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead:

Start with general questions:

1. Eugenides warns in his introduction that these stories aren't for the faint-of-heart—they end on sad, bittersweet notes. Of those stories you read, did the endings disappoint you? Choose one or two stories and talk about the mood and the endings.

2. Here is Eugenides' definition of love stories, which he has used to select the stories in this volume:

A love story can never be about full possession. The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dims—these are eventualities but they aren't love stories. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name.

Is his definition to somber for you, too narrow? Completely wrong?

3. Talk about the title of this collection, "My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead," from the Latin Poet Catullus. As Eugenides says, "In each of the twenty-six love stories, either there is a sparrow or the sparrow is dead." Can you identify the sparrow in the stories you've read...and determine whether it's alive or dead?

4. Which stories were your favorites...and why? Which were your least favorites...and why?

5. Don't be afraid to draw some comparisons among stories. For instance:

• "The Lady with the Dog" and "Spring in Fialta."
• Either of the above with "Moonlight in Flight" and "Lovers in Their Time."
• Perhaps the self-sacrifice of "Mouche" and "The Bear Came Over the Mountian."
• Perhaps the accusatory lovers in "The Hitchhiking Game" and "Tonka."

Questions on selected stories:

6. FIRST LOVE AND OTHER SORROWS

a). What is the significance of the story's title—why is "first love" a sorrow?

b). This story pits the head against heart, rationalism against emotion. Which wins out...and for whom? Which is ultimately more important in a relationship?

c) What do you predict for the marriage of the boy's sister and Sonny? Why does the sister agree to marry Sonny? Does she love him?

7. THE LADY WITH THE LITTLE DOG

a) Why does Gurov realize (or decide?) he loves Anna? Does he love her?

b) Given the last line: "the end was still far, far off, and that the most complicated and difficult part was just beginning," what do you predict for Gurov and Anna?

8. LOVE

a) Who is Dotty Wasserman...and what does she have to do with this story? Is she real...or a make-believe character in couple's life?

b) Notice the slippery role time plays in this story: characters recall the past—but there is also a reference to how the future plays out. Why is time so "slippery"...what has time to do with love?

9. A ROSE FOR EMILY

a) To what extent is the "we" of the community responsible for Miss Emily's demise?

b) Why did Emily poison Homer? Was she a cold-blooded murderess...or insane?

c) Talk about Faulkner's unusual timeline. See our LitCourse Study Guide for "Miss Emily."

10. THE DEAD

a) What is the significance of this title? Who/what is dead?

b) How would you describe Gabriel? After Gretta tells him the story of Michael Furey, Gabriel realizes that he "had never felt like that himself towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love." Is Gabriel capable of any depth of feeling...for his country or for his wife?

11. THE HITCHHIKING GAME

a) Who is the young woman—what is her true personae:: the aggressively flirtatious "hitchhiker" or the shy woman at the beginning and end of the story? What about the young man— what is his real identity: promiscuous or faithful and loving?

12. MOUCHE

a) Is "Mouche," the boaters' name for the young woman, meant to be derogatory or affectionate or playful or...what?

b) N'a Qu-un Oeil, "who perhaps loved her more than any of us" agrees to share Mouche with all the others to give her another baby. All agree and exclaim, "Honest." What do you think of the agreement?

c) Notice that this is a story within a story, in which the narrator, an older man reminiscing, may be pulling the reader's leg. Consider how that might affect the meaning of the story's last word.

13. LOVERS OF THEIR TIME

a) Why does Norman wonder at the beginning of this story whether his and Marie's affair could have happened "at any other time except the 1960's"? What is the significance of that decade?

b) Could he and Marie have had a future...or was their love inevitably doomed—as much, say, as Anna Karenina's?

14. THE MOON IN FLIGHT

a) In what way does the narrator intrude in this story? What tone is used—is it sincere, ironic, sarcastic...? And why might the author have invented such a narrator? The narrator seems to be playing with the entire convention of storytelling: we could do this for the couple...we could do that for them.

b) What is the last line about—"art cannot rescue anybody from anything?" Or is this story just too hard to understand?

15. SPRINGTIME IN FIALTA

a) We learn early on (third page) that this will be the last time the narrator will meet Nina: "for I cannot imagine" fate consenting t "a meeting with her beyond the grave." How does that knowledge color your reading of the entire story?

b) The narrator admits that through his constant meetings with Nina, he "grew more and more apprehensive...because some-thing lovely, delicate, and unrepeatable was being wasted: something which I abused by...neglecting the modest but true core which perhaps it kept offering me in a pitiful whisper." He rationalizes that "any practical chance of life together with Nina.... was absurd" (p. 245). Was Nina, in fact, "offering" something? Was she in love with our narrator?

16. HOW TO BE AN OTHER WOMAN

a) The 2nd-person perspective "you" is quite unusual in fiction. Why does Lorrie Moore use it...what effect is she hoping to achieve...and is she successful?

b) Notice the title: Moore doesn't use the typical "the" other woman...or "another" woman, but "an other" woman. Any ideas?

c) Really, in the end, does the lover's surprise revelation make any difference? He's already proved himself dishonest. Why was that the breaking point?

17. YOURS

a) Why are these two people, of such differing ages, together?

b) What does the "yours" of the title ultimately mean?

18. TONKA

a) Was Tonka not good enough—or too good—for the narrator of this story? Was the baby his...or was Tonka unfaithful?

b) What does the narrator come to learn in the last three paragraphs of the story? What is "the bandage that had blindfolded him" refer to? And how did it make him "better than other people"—that "small warm shadow that had fallen across his brilliant life"?

19. RED ROSE, WHITE ROSE

a) Is there anyone you like in this story?!

b) What is the significance of the yellow slippers at the end? Why does Zhenbao reform? And what does "reform" mean? Does he come to love with Yanli? What is her future?

20. FIREWORKS

a) This story starts and ends with fireworks...of very different kinds. How do they differ...and what is their meaning to the story, especially given the story's title?

b) What is the significance of the collect phone call from Jeff? Later, Starling wishes he had accepted the call. Why...what do you think?

21. WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE

a) Did Terri's first husband "love" her as she insists, even though he tried to kill her? What does it mean to love someone?

b) Is Mel right—that love is absolute? If so, then as Mel wonders, how can you love one person...then come to hate that person...and fall in love with another?

22. THE BEAR CAME OVER THE MOUNTAIN

a) What is the magnificent central irony of this story?

b) What does the title mean in the context of the story?

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

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