Essay Questions

Which World War has the greatest impact on Fidelis' life?

Both wars impact Fidelis but World War One has a largely positive impact on him because the poverty of the country he returns to after serving in the German army prompts him to decide to immigrate and provide a much brighter future for his family. Out of the ashes of war he rises stronger and more able to give his family the life he knows they deserve. He does not actively participate in World War 2 but ironically this war affects him in the most negative way because it permanently fractured his family. Two of his sons have returned to Germany and they choose to fight on the side of Hitler; when they are captured and brought to America as prisoners of war they refuse to see their father. As much as the First World War succeeds in bringing his family together the Second World War does the opposite.

The characters in this novel are complex and full of contradictions. Give examples of a couple of characters who seem the most paradoxical.

Fidelis is one of the more contradictory characters in the book. He is a butcher. This is a seemingly brutal trade. He hacks away at dead animals for a living. There is no beauty or poetry in that. Fidelis also sings beautifully. His voice is pure and gentle and people love to listen to him. It is hard to imagine a sound of such beauty coming from a man whose job is brutal and ugly. Roy is also a mass of contradictions. He is viewed harshly by the townsfolk and dismissed as a drunk and a deadbeat. However before he was either of these things he was also a man who stepped up to take in an abandoned child and raised her as his own without asking for help from anyone. He gave Delphine a life that made her want to repay the kindness and come home to take care of him. As an older man his droning overcame his ability to function but as a younger man he had purpose and courage.

Should Roy have been charged with murder?

Roy did not intend to kill the Chavers family, although he had ill-will towards them and had taken them as a retribution for a perceived wrong. He shut them in the cellar and forgot about them. This is how they came to die. He did not intend them to die but he was so drunk that he completely forgot about them. We can draw from the book that it is his feelings of guilt that make him continue to drink but he nonetheless neglected to report the deaths once he realized what had happened (after all, the stench coming from the cellar should probably have jogged his memory.) he does not seem like a murderer and the Chavers died by accident but he should definitely have been charged with causing their death.