List of Characters (in random order)
Evie Roberts, Jimmy Burke, Mia, Billy/Bunny, Nkenge, Marion, Money Bag, Brown Nose, Evie’s Father, Evie’s Mother, Dr. Horseface, Dr. Bonehead, Dr. La La Land, Elly, The History Chair (Elly’s husband), College Girl
All of the characters in the novel Evie's Fall can be analyzed using the basic elements of what gives people their identities, what issues we grapple with, and our impediments to understanding and sympathizing others. Not all areas resonate with all people, but using them for analysis is a useful way of entering a discussion about a work.
For more info on "what makes up a person," go here.
Character
Religion, Education Level, Profession, Family, Significant Other (or lack thereof), Recreational Activities, Politics, Past Trauma and Mistakes, Friend, Economics, Social Systems They Interact With, Gender Identify and Assumptions, Mental Health, Support Structures, Age, Past Success, Physical Health, Past Failure, Sexual Preference, Dreams and Goals, Spirituality, Culture, Positive Life Experiences, Fill in the blank……
Taboo Subjects/Issues
Money, Sex Life, Religion, Personal Tragedy, Events That Make You Proud, Politics, “Bad “ Words, Complaining, Events about Which You Are Ashamed or Embarrassed, Private information about others, Bodily Functions, Subjects Unfamiliar to the Listener, Things That Made You Upset or Angry, Aging, Parenting Issues, Negative Attitude, Disabilities, Unfamiliar Culture, You Fill in the Blank……
What Causes Hang Ups in Understanding or Makes a Subject Seem Inappropriate to Discuss
Age and ‘Generation,’ Cultural Background and Experience, Religion, Level of Education, Familiarity with Subject, Comfort Level with What You Were “Taught” Was the Truth, Who is Giving the Message, Medium of the message, Individual Comfort Level with Ambiguity, Personal Communication Style, Conception of Social Structure and What is “Right,” Conception of Gender Roles and What Is Appropriate, Word Choice in the Message, the Tone of the Message, Comfort Level with Authority, Personal Relationships, You Fill in the Blank……
A Discussion of Plot Using Character Analysis, Subject Matter,
& Conflict as a Starting Point
Evie Roberts
Character Analysis
1. What is Evie’s Religion? Does it differ from what we might call Spirituality? How does religion add to or detract from her life? What does she mean when she indicates that Mia and Nkenge are struggling over her soul? When Evie agrees to pray at the end, is she saved?
2. What is Evie’s Education Level? How has this advantaged her? How has it detracted from her development? Is she satisfied with her education?
3. What is Evie’s Profession? Does she have one? If so, does she enjoy it? Does she want one? Which one? What Would Evie like to be professionally? How has her profession or lack thereof affected the development of her character?
4. What was Evie’s childhood Family like? Did she have siblings? How did she get along with her parents? What were her parents like? How would you describe the Family she ended up creating?
5. Who was Evie’s Significant Other (or lack thereof)? Was she married to him? What was their relationship? If her love was not her husband, why not? How has her success with a Significant Other affected her life- long development as a person?
6. What did Evie do for fun? What were her Recreational Activities? How might they have contributed to her fulfillment as a person?
7. What were Evie’s Politics? Did they change over the course of the story? Why or why not?
8. List the Past Trauma and Mistakes that Evie experienced. How did each one affect her attitude, her options, and turn her into the person she became. How might she have dealt differently with her trauma?
9. What Friends did Evie have? Did her ability to get closer to others change throughout the course of her life? How did her friendships help determine her destiny?
10. Where would you place Evie Economically? How did her social status affect her? Was she protected or exposed because of her class? What opportunities did she acquire because of her class? What was denied her?
11. What Social Systems did Evie have to deal with? How did they treat her as an individual? Consider the health system she encounters throughout the story as one social system she encounters in the book.
12. What was Evie’s Gender Identify and describe the Assumptions that accompany her notions of Gender Identity
13. How would you describe Evie’s Mental Health over the course of the story?
14. What Support Structures did Evie have in place? How did they help her? If she did not have any, why not? How might she have been helped by being part of a support structure?
15. How did aging affect Evie? How did the image of herself change from young woman, to middle aged, to old? How did her aging affect her entire concept of herself?
16. Did Evie have any Past Successes? When she basks in the glow of accomplishments, what is she celebrating? How has her relationship to Past Success helped or hindered her?
17. Describe Evie’s past and current Physical Health. What are the consequences of her health issues short and long term?
18. What does Evie see as her Past Failures? Are they her own? Were they foisted upon her? How did failure affect Evie?
19. What were Evie’s Dreams and Goals as a very young girl, a young woman, a mother, middle aged widow, and old woman? How did she reach or fail to reach them. What were the consequences of success or failure?
20. How would you describe Evie’s Culture. What she part of the Culture at Large? Did she interact with any subcultures or show empathy to those outside her cultural sphere? Explain.
21. Did Evie have any Positive Life Experiences? What were they? How do they inform the woman she was, is, and will become?
22. What are Evie’s strengths?
23. What are Evie’s weaknesses?
24. Does Evie change over the course of the novel?
25. What happens to Evie after she is sedated for surgery? Does she make it back? Why or why not?
Taboo Subject Matter and the Forbidden Parts of the Human Heart
Consider the following subjects that offend listeners when we bring them up: Religion, Education Level, Profession, Family, Significant Other (or lack thereof), Recreational Activities, Politics, Past Trauma and Mistakes, Friends, Economics, Social Systems They Interact With, Gender Identify and Assumptions, Mental Health, Support Structures, Past Success, Physical Health, Past Failure, Sexual Preference, Dreams and Goals, Spirituality, Culture, Positive Life Experiences, Fill in the blank……
1. What Taboo Subjects surround Evie’s childhood, young adulthood, and old age? In other words, what was Evie not allowed to discuss over the course of her life and why not? How did this repression affect her?
2. How does she see others around her as affected by issues that do not concern her? In other words, what ‘taboo’ subjects did she not want others to bring up to her, which ones make her feel uncomfortable, and which make her feel as if she is superior to others?
Conflictions, Hang Ups, and Communication Blockers
1. How do Evie’s Age and ‘Generation contribute to her understanding of the world? Do they limit her, free her, or both?
2. How do Evie’s Cultural Background and Experience add or detract from her relationship with others and with herself?
3. What is Evie’s Religion and how does it help or hinder her from connecting to others?
4. How does Evie’s Level of Education both contribute or detract from her relations with others?
5. How is Evie’s Familiarity with Subjects such as homosexuality, pedophilia, and cross dressing affect her communication with others? Does she change over the course of the book?
6. How does Evie’s Comfort Level with What She Was “Taught” Was the Truth change from the time she is a young girl to the time she is old?
7. Evie is dependent on a new cast of characters that she could not have imagined. How does she feel about Who is Giving the Messages she is forced to listen to: from the doctors, Billy, Mia, Nkenge? What enhances or detracts from the communication with the constituents that make up her new life in the hospital?
8. Which style of communication does Evie best respond to over the course of her life? Does the Medium of the Message to which she responds change over the course of the story?
9. How comfortable is Evie with Ambiguity? What issues are up in the air and will never be resolved? What issues are up in the air but have an end in sight?
10. What is Eve’s Personal Communication Style and how does it change over the course of the story?
11. Evie follows convention her whole life. How does the notion of what is ‘right’ change by the end of the book?
12. How does Evie’s Conception of Gender Roles and What Is Appropriate change over the course of the story?
13. You Fill in the Blank……
Question: How would you use the discussion questions above to talk about the character of Mia?
(please note these materials are copyrighted by Sandra Kolankiewicz
and can be used for educational purposes only)