Below are the questions you posed. I look forward to reading your blog posts and discussing these questions in class.
Paris Red
1. Do you think that sex was needed to move the story forward? Was sex a necessity and what did it accomplish?
2. Is this story more about the exploitation of a young woman or her empowerment?
3. How does Victorine achieve significant character growth?
4. The novel frames Victorine and Manet’s relationship in a positive light, though she is 17 and he is 30. How can modern standards be reconciled with this?
5. How would you describe the relationship between Denise, Manet, and the narrator?
6. The novel prompts the reader to consider a woman’s relationship to her work in a time period in which it is not proper for a woman of Louise’s stature to be without a job that suits her social status, especially because she is not occupied with children or familial obligations.
7. This novel can prompt the discussion of what exactly a muse is, and if the artist-muse relationship is more of a partnership or a one-sided parasitism.
8. Why are Louise’s carefully planned actions so important throughout the novel? The author makes sure that they stand out, and that the reader knows.
9. Does Victorine maintain control of her narrative or does Manet ultimately control her? Or is it she who controls him? There is obviously a power imbalance, but who is being taken advantage of?
10. What role did money play in the novel? How did that influence what the characters did?
11. How is Victorine a sympathetic character versus unsympathetic?
12. At what point should a person’s desires be placed above the feelings of their loved ones?
13. What are your opinions on Manet throughout this book?
14. How does Louise push the boundaries of her time period and encourages readers, especially women, to question boundaries that they are or could be pushing?
15. How does the time period impact the choices made?
16. Why does the story end seemingly open-ended?
17. Manet becomes himself because of Victorine, but who does she become? Is she still the girl in the painting?
18. How does the following statement by Victorine help frame her character throughout the novel? How does it work in tandem with her development (if any)?: “There is the body he sees and what I am. I know they are two different things. I understand that.”
19. What purpose do the short sections serve in this story? Do they reveal something about character, her naïveté and youth? Is there a deeper meaning to the lyrical endings and repetition to words like “want” and “need” and “hunger”?
Paris Red and Girl With a Pearl Earring
1. In both novels, the main character, a woman, created their own art eventually. What do you think was the difference in motivation behind each of the characters creating their art?
2. What do the characters of Griet and Victorine show about coming of age in their times?
3. In what ways are Victorine and Griet similar? Different? What are some noticeable reactions to scenes within Paris Red where Victorine may echo Griet?
4. How can Victorine’s goals/motivations be compared to Griet’s?
5. How was the descriptions in settings different and similar in Paris Red and Girl With a Pearl Earring? Was there more imagery in one than the other? Did you feel they were more similar or more different?
6. Both Girl With a Pearl Earring and Paris Red raise questions about the dynamic between young women and older men. It makes me, and likely other readers, question what it is about this time period that leads women to need to feel wanted by such men.
7. In what ways are Griet and Victorine similar? How would they have acted in each other’s place? How are they different?
8. How is the perspective of an artist shown by Louise in Paris Red in comparison to Griet in Girl With A Pearl Earring?
9. By the end of the novel, do both protagonists remain true to themselves or do they lose themselves to this artistic world that feels almost out of their league?
10. Why do you think the narrators in Paris Red and Girl With a Pearl Earring both only refer to the man in their lives as “he” and never by their name?