These Is My Words, by Nancy E. Turner

Summer Reading Questions – Type the question, then start a new line and type the answer in complete sentences. Paper MUST BE TYPED IN MLA FORMAT and turned in the first day of class. Support your answers by citing passages and examples from the book.

1. Using a first-person narrator limits the reader’s perspective. At times, one may feel that Sarah is neither honest with herself nor correctly interpreting others’ actions or feelings. How might the book have changed if it were written in third person?

2. Sarah might consider herself an unlikely heroine, simply doing what she could to survive. How does she compare with modern women in determination and courage?

3. Jack Elliot is an elusive lover. Why does this make him more desirable, since his role is not forbidden love but unwanted?

4. What is the purpose of “Mama’s” mental illness? Does it mean anything that we never know her name?

5. Given the terrible hardship of life in Arizona Territory during the 1880s and 1890s, the desperate need to survive drove Sarah to do things that today might seem ruthless. Yet, she remained a caring and loving person. Is this consistent with women today?

6. Consider Jack’s and Sarah’s relationship. How does the single event known about his childhood color everything in their lives?

7. Although she remains “quaintly unsophisticated” throughout her life, Sarah’s thirst for education fuels much of the plot. How does her education change her and those around her? What other themes are woven through the novel?

8. Why did Sarah marry Jimmy? If he had lived, could they have forged a better relationship from the remains of their marriage?

9.What is the significance of Jack and Sarah exchanging time pieces for their wedding gifts to each other?

10. Sarah obviously feels awe for Savannah. How does Savannah share the same respect for Sarah?

11.What is the point of “The Duchess of Warwick and Her Sorrow by the Sea?”

12. There are many references to religion and evidence that religious teaching, though very informal, influenced each person in the book. Yet, Sarah seems to have a very practical approach to theology while Savannah remains deeply spiritual. How does this balance maintain each of them?