My lit seminar was based off Lena St Clair's section in The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, "The Voice from the Wall". The paragraphs I used were on page 106, starting "And after..." and ending at "faded in the sun".
My first question was "Do you think that Lena and her mother have more of a connection than the other mother-daugther relationships in the book so far?" This seemed to be a very popular question and I got a lot of good feed back from it. Nicole made a good point, saying they didn't because Ying-Ying had said "[my] daughter doesn't hear me". On the other side of the argument, Katherine said she thought they had a different connection then the others, but not neccesarily stronger, because Lena has to translate what her mother says to her father because he doesn't speak Chinese.
My second question was a little more in depth. I asked "Why do you think that Lena did not tell her mother of the things she saw?" Both Alyson and Charlie made excellent points in response to this question. Alyson said she believes she does not tell her mom because Lena is trying to protect Ying-Ying. Charlie used the saying 'like mother, like daugther' in his response by saying that Lena does not tell her mother her secret just like Ying-Ying does not tell Lena everything about her past and keeps secrets from her.
This also ties into my first question about the type of relationship the two have. Since they hide things from each other and are not as open as some of the other mothers and daugthers are, it is a completely different type of relationship. Because of this, it is hard to compare their relationship to the other ones.
Over all, my literary seminar was a great success. People answered the questions well and stayed on topic. I thank everyone for participating so well. It was not as stressful as I thought it would be. Thanks again! :)
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I thought this seminar went very well. The discussion never strayed far off-topic, and the topic itself was good. The class talked about the relationship between Lena and her mother.
I thought that Lena and her mother have a closer, but not necessarily stronger, connection than others. This is because Lena needs to do the translating for her family, exposing her to everything they say.
For the second question, I agreed with Alyson--Lena does not tell her mother everything because her mother does not tell her everything. This shows that despite their close ties, they are still separate people who come in to conflict.
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