Contemporary Writers Project/Discussion Questions Eyre Affair

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Discussion Questions

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/reviews/the-eyre-affair

The Eyre Affair

by Jasper Fforde

1. If you could jump right into any novel with Ms. Nakajima, which novel would you choose to visit? What classic novel endings have left you unsatisfied? What endings would you change if you had the power to do so?
2. Acheron Hades claims that pure evil is as rare as pure good. Do you think either exists in our world?
3. Two of the main plot devices—time travel and book jumping—illustrate the infinite possibilities of alternate endings. If you could travel through time, is there anything in history, either in the broad sense or in your own personal history, that you would go back and revise?
4. If you could choose Ms. Nakajima's ability to jump into novels, Thursday's father's ability to travel through time, or Acheron Hades' ability to defy mortality, which power would you choose to have and why?
5. Despite the fact that he is her one true love, Thursday holds a grudge against Landen Parke-Laine for over ten years because he betrayed her brother when they returned from the Crimean War. Whom do you think Thursday's first allegiance should have been to, her lover or her brother? Do you think her decision to return to Landen comes out of weakness or strength?
6. In the hands of villains like Jack Schitt and Acheron Hades, the Prose Portal could be exploited for villainous deeds, but it could also have been used to do good deeds such as producing a cure for terminal diseases. Would you choose to destroy the Prose Portal as Mycroft does without trying to extract good use out of it first? Do you think the risk of the destruction it could cause outweighs the possibilities for good?
7. Thursday's brother, the very Irreverend Joffy, tells her, "The first casualty of war is always truth." Do you think this is true? Why or why not?
8. Thursday says, "All my life I have felt destiny tugging at my sleeve. Few of us have any real idea what it is we are here to do and when it is that we are to do it. Every small act has a knock-on consequence that goes on to affect those about us in unseen ways. I was lucky that I had so clear a purpose." In a world where time is so pliable, can there be such a thing as destiny? Was there a defining moment in your life when you understood what your own purpose was?
9. Who is the worse villain, Acheron Hades or Jack Schitt? Which sentence do you think is worse—death by a silver bullet to the heart or an eternity trapped in Poe's "The Raven"?


HMWK:  Read to Ch. 9 in The Eyre Affair

Annotated Ch. 1 Eyre Affair

Read the annotated Ch. 1.  Click on the hyperlinks.

http://www.jasperfforde.com/annotated.html

Characters and Objects in The Eyre Affair

Characters
Thursday Next - This main character is a literary detective who returns to Swindon to continue an investigation, and is the narrator of the story.
Acheron Hades - This character is using an invention to kill fictional characters.
Aunt Polly and Uncle Mycroft - These characters, related to the main character, are a scientist and his assistant.
Mom and Dad Next - These characters, related to the main character, are a rogue member of the Chronoguard and his wife.
Landen Parke-Laine - This character, a novelist, was friends with the main character's brother when they were both in the Army.
Jack Schitt - This Goliath Corporation employee wants to use the Prose Portal to develop weapons for the Crimean War.
Victor Analogy - This character is the head of Swindon's LiteraTec department.
Spike - This character is the only member of Swindon's SO-27, hunting down vampires, werewolves, and other creatures.
Fillip Tamworth and Filbert Snood - These characters go on a stakeout with the main character. One of them was aged in a Chronoguard accident.
Jane Eyre and Mr. Edward Rochester - These characters are from a book within the book, and their story must be rescued by the main character.

Object Descriptions

This section provides a short description of all the major objects in the book. This can be printed out as a study guide for students, used as a "key" for leading a class discussion, or you can jump to the quiz/homework section to find worksheets that incorporate these descriptions into a variety of question formats.
Objects
Bookworms - These inventions by Mycroft feed on words and expel synonyms.
Prose Portal - This invention by Mycroft is stolen by Acheron Hades.
Plasma Rifle - This invention does not work in the real world.
356 Speedster - This is bought by Thursday after she sees herself with it, and it is brightly painted.
LiteraTec - This is the specific division Thursday works for.
ChronoGuard - This is the specific division Thursday's father worked for, and is now being hunted by.
SO-5 - The sole purpose of this highly secretive division is to hunt Acheron Hades.
SpecOps - This is a special police force in England, divided into departments.
Goliath Corporation - This company helped rebuild England. They provide everything people need, so their motto is "From cradle to coffin."
Martin Chuzzlewit - A minor character from this novel is found murdered in the streets of London.
Jane Eyre - This novel was published under the pseudonym Currer Bell, and was stolen by Acheron Hades.
Haworth House - This museum was the location of a strange episode during which Thursday Next met Edward Rochester for the first time.
Thornfield - This is Edward Rochester's estate.
Crimean War - This has been going on for 130 years.
Millcote - This is the small town where Jane Eyre lived and fell in love with Edward Rochester.
Swindon - This is Thursday's hometown.

Eyre Affair Allusions

Allusions in the Eyre Affair

The Eyre Affair is filled with literary and historical allusions and references that make reading it enjoyable.  It does this by referencing people, places, and items outside of the novel in a way that brings another layer of meaning to the plot and its events.  In this way it creates an experience of meta-reading, something that is not unlike the experiences that we had when reading the hypertext fiction and working to create our own. 

However, you can only experience the reading this way if you are in on the allusions (and the jokes that they are trying to make, in the case of Fforde's novel).  Did you recognize all the allusions?  How did you feel when you recognized one?  How did this compare to how you felt when you did not recognize one? 

In order to delve into the book, you will each be embarking on a webquest to determine to what each of the items listed below is referring.

al·lu·sion

Noun:

An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference. The practice of making such references, esp. as an artistic device.

Look up the following references:

Boswell
Pickwick

Goliath (as in "Goliath Corporation")
Crimean War
William Thackeray
Mycroft
Cardenio
Longfellow
surrealism
impressionism
Gad's Hill
Martin Chuzzlewit
Dickens
Haworth House
Austen
Swift
Gulliver's Travels
Mill on the Floss
Byron
Keats
Poe
Acheron Hades
chimera
Henry Fielding
Styx Hades
Jane Eyre
Bronte
Francis Bacon
Toad (toady) news
Stoker
Spike
Liz Barrett Browning
The Chesire Cat
Bowden Cable
Wordsworth
Braxton Hicks
Felix Tabularasa

The Hours Project

AGENDA:

Continue to work on your Hours projects--short story, play, poetry cycle, etc.
DUE: Thursday, May 14

Catch up on Blog Posts:
#1---Discussion Questions 1-4
#2---Discussion questions 5-8
#3--Discussion Questions 9-16

HMWK: Finish reading The Hours, test on Thursday!

Submit to Canvas Writers and Books Literary Journal

http://canvasliteraryjournal.com/submit/

The Hours cont.

AGENDA: For Wed. and Friday

Hours video

Blog post:  Finish discussion questions
Reading: Finish the book for Friday (over the weekend APers)

WRITING:
Continue to work on Hours projects

Hey, a Spring Poem

Spring (Again)

 

Michael Ryan

The birds were louder this morning,
raucous, oblivious, tweeting their teensy bird-brains out.
It scared me, until I remembered it’s Spring.
How do they know it? A stupid question.
Thank you, birdies. I had forgotten how promise feels.

The Hours (cont.)

AGENDA:

Continue to work on your motif projects

Discuss and post responses to these new questions:

1. How does war, specifically World War I and World War II, shape the perspectives of the characters in the book?
2. What significance do domestic objects have? Who relies the most on domestic objects for comfort?
3. How does memory function in the Clarissa sections of the book? Is she fully content with the choices that she has made?
4. How does reading Mrs. Dalloway affect Laura?
5. Does Cunningham’s formal device of mirroring Clarissa Vaughn’s life on Woolf’s Clarissa Dalloway make Clarissa Vaughn’s character believable, or does the choice seem like a gimmick?

NY Times Book Review:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/22/reviews/981122.22woodlt.html

Work on Study guide #1 for credit