Look Homeward, Angel (Wolfe)

Discussion Questions
1. Like Faulkner and Joyce, Wolfe has been acclaimed for his evocation of place. What details in Look Homeward, Angel evoke its setting, and what is the relation between its setting and its themes?

2. Describe the structure of Look Homeward, Angel. Discuss Wolfe's literary voice and his use of dramatic episodes and lyricism. How does Wolfe use both angels and trains symbolically? What significance does the title Look Homeward, Angel gather in the course of the novel?

3. In what ways does the novel powerfully represent the American struggle to go beyond the limitations of home and hometown? In what ways is the novel a search for America as well?

4. Describe the conflict which rages inside of Eugene Gant? How does it become the underlying force in the story?

5. Look Homeward, Angel is concerned with family and breaking away. Discuss this theme as it emerges in the book as well as in the exchanges between Eugene and Eliza, Eugene and Mr. Gant, Eugene and Ben.

6. Wolfe clearly states in the opening pages:

That we are born alone—all of us who ever lived or will live—that we live alone, and die alone, and that we are strangers to one another, and never come to know one another.

How does this sentiment pervade the novel? How does Wolfe develop it as a leitmotiv? Who else in the novel, besides Eugene, is alone?

7. Women play a significant role in Wolfe's novel, especially Eliza, Margaret, Laura James, and Helen. What distinguishes Wolfe's female characters? What do they all have in common? How do these women shape events? What impact do they have on Eugene's growth and ultimate transformation?

8. Discuss the impetus Wolfe's male characters provide Eugene. What characterizes Wolfe's male characters? How do Mr. Gant, Ben, Steve, and Luke contribute to Eugene's ultimate fate? What role do Wolfe's male characters play in the events, in the family?

9. How might Wolfe perceive his own characters? Does he offer any insights into their troubles? Does he treat them sympathetically? If so, how? In what ways do Wolfe's characters, in particular Eugene, try to win love? What keeps them from obtaining it? Do Wolfe's characters ever break through to one another? If so, who, how, and when?

10. Beginning with the death of Mr. Gant's grandfather, to the death of Mr. Gant's first child, death is a constant presence in Look Homeward, Angel. What impact does Ben's death have on the Gant family? Specifically, how does it alter Eugene's life and perspective? Why is Ben's death ironic in the novel? How does the story build to this climax? What does Ben's death accomplish that his life could not?

11. Why might Wolfe have ended the novel with a visitation of Ben's ghost with Eugene? What is its significance both for Eugene and for the novel?

12. What vision of human nature does Look Homeward, Angel seem to express? Does Wolfe prove or suggest a vision of an ideal world? What might it be?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)