Study Questions
Terry Tempest Williams, Red
“Home Work,” Red, 3-19
“Coyote Clan,” Red 23-26
"Lion Eyes," Red 27-31
"Kokopelli's Return," Red 43-45
"The Perfect Kiva," Red 46-51
“ America’s Red Rock Wilderness,” Red, 61-71
“Statement,” Red, 72-78
“The Erotic Landscape,” Red 104-111
“Changing Constellations,” Red, 116-123
“River Music,” Red 148-150
“Labor,” Red 154-163
Desert Quartet:
"Earth," Red, 195-200
"Water," Red, 201-204
"Fire," Red, 205-208
"Air," Red, 209-212
RED: PASSION AND PATIENCE IN THE DESERT
“Home Work,” Red, 3-19
1. What are the literary techniques she uses in this essay? Make a list. What kind of effects do they have?
2. Much of this essay deals with ecopsychology. Make a list of the various aspects of her view of the human consciousness of nature, both actual and ideal.
3. What does Terry Tempest Williams mean by “place + people = politics” and “This territory is not neutral.” (3) What does that say about the study of nature and the environment? Do you agree with these statements?
4. Why does she prefer story as a “way toward conversation” (3)? What are her goals? What assumptions lead her to here views. What can stories do … and not do? That is, what power and limitations does story have?
5. What does she mean by “reducing you to a lizard state of mind” (5). Do you think that is possible? Why or why not? Does she view having a lizard state of mind as a good thing? Do you agree? Why or why not?
6. What does she mean by describing the desert as teacher, mirage, and illusion, largely our own (5)?
7. What does she say about the relationship between space and time in the desert (5-6)? Does that make sense to you?
8. She claims that wild country is essential to our psychology and the desert is precious to the soul of America (6). What does she mean? Do you agree? What keeps people from people from feeling this?
9. Do you think we have people that speak for the earth (9)? Should the earth have “representatives”? How would they be chosen, and by what criteria?
10. What is the point of the quotation from Aldo Leopold (11)? Why does he say that? What assumptions are at work? What are the implications if we really took this seriously as individuals and as a society?
11. Williams is very concerned about rhetoric (especially 11-12 and 19). To oversimplify, rhetoric deals with literary style and its effects on the audience. What type of rhetoric is she seeking? Do you think that goal is possible? To what degree does she accomplish that goal? What factors affect the effectiveness of a rhetorical approach?
12. What does Williams mean by “Out of chaos, creativity is emerging” (14)?
13. What is “spiritual resistance” (17)? What is required? Do you think this is an effective approach to environmental politics and conservation? What does she mean by “a moral line of behavior that transcends thought” (19)? Is that related to spiritual resistance?
14. What does she mean by “home work” (title, and 19)? Why does she use that term? What does “bedrock democracy” mean, and how is it related to home work?
“Coyote Clan,” Red, 23-26
1. What does Williams mean by “ownership” (23)? What type of ownership is it? What is required to claim such an ownership?
2. In this essay and “Home Work,” she speaks of mythology (4, 24, 25). What is her view of mythology, and how is related to nature?
3. What does she mean by “individuals who care for the rocks will find openings . . . into the unseen world” (25)?
4. What is the Coyote Clan (25-26)? Who belongs to it? What qualities do they have? What do they do and how do they do it? What impact do they have? What does it have to do with beauty? Would you like to be a part of the clan? Why or why not? What would you need to do to join?
"Lion Eyes," Red, 27-31
1. What do you think is the purpose of telling the story about the children? What about native culture and its relationship to nature is she portraying?
2. What is the attitude toward animals in this story?
3. What is the purpose of the children's chanting song? How does this affect Williams? What is "Music born out of healing" (30)? What other kinds of music or other things (if any) can be born out of healing?
4. What does this story suggest about the relationship between Anglo and native culture?
"Kokopelli's Return," Red, 43-45
1. Who is Kokopelli, and what is his traditional significance to native culture? What does Williams suggest is the significance of Kokopelli for modern Anglo culture? Do you agree?
2. What is the meaning of the last paragraph? How do you respond to it?
3. What does this story suggest about the native conception of and relationship to nature?
"The Perfect Kiva," Red, 46-51
1. What is the significance of the ladder? Does it have a metaphorical meaning?
2. "They fear aging and want it stopped like an insect in amber" (50). Who is "they"? What is the fear? What is Williams’s view?
3. What is "The Perfect Kiva"? Why perfect?
4. What does the phrase "Dawn came into the country like a secret" mean? Why does she say it twice?
5. What is your attitude toward "theft in the name of preservation"? Is it right and just? Why or why not?
6. What does this story suggest about the relationship between Anglo and native culture?
“America’s Red Rock Wilderness,” Red, 61-71
1. How do you react to this list of names? Why does she present this list?
2. On page 68, Williams asks a number of questions. What is she asking? Why is she using this literary technique? What effect do they have on you?
3. How does she conceive of wilderness? What significance does it have for her?
4. This essay has a significant presence of spirituality. What are the aspects of her spirituality? How is this spirituality different from the conventional kind in our culture?
5. Read page 71 closely. What is she saying? How do you respond to her statements? What is the effect of using the word “we” here? What does her views of wilderness have to do with democracy?
6. In what ways is this essay an example of “literature of engagement?”
“Statement,” Red, 72-78
1. This essay is actually a transcript of a statement she made to Congress. In what ways is it also nature writing?
2. The rhetorical context of this essay is obviously important. What is her strategy in trying to convince the legislators? In what ways do you think she is effective? In what ways not?
3. What are the basic points she makes? Make a list.
4. How does she conceive of wilderness? What is its significance that she is trying to convey?
5. This essay has a significant presence of spirituality. What are the aspects of her spirituality?
6. In what ways is this essay an example of “literature of engagement?”
“The Erotic Landscape,” Red, 104-111
1. What does she mean by “erotic?” List as many aspects and characteristics as you can find in this essay. How the erotic it related to “pornography?” How is it related to nature and our relationship to it – why is it in a book of “nature writing” essays? Do you agree with her view of the erotic? Why or why not?
2. What happens when she climbs into the old juniper tree? What is the significance of this story? (107-108)
3. “Could it be that what we fear most is our capacity to feel?” (108) Why does she ask this? What about our society is she criticizing? What is her ideal in response to this problem?
4. "Let the beauty of what we love be what we do." What does Rumi and Williams mean by this? What would it be like to accomplish this? Do you think it's possible to live life this way? Why or why not? “There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” What does this mean? (111)
5. Interrelationship and wholeness are important themes. Where do they appear and what is their significance? How are they related to the erotic?
6. She criticizes the stance of being a spectator (106), and she talks about "engagement of the soul" (108) and "participating in our wild nature" (111). What is she criticizing and what alternative is she proposing? Why is this important to her? Do you agree with her views?
5. What aspects of ecofeminism are involved in this essay? Do you agree with this aspect of the essay?
6. What kind of ecopsychology is involved?
7. What spirituality and philosophy of nature are involved?
8. What kind of literary techniques is she using in this essay? How effective are they? What kind of tone and atmosphere pervade this essay? What is her context and stance?
“Changing Constellations,” Red, 116-123
1. What is the basis of Williams’s sad, depressed mood in the beginning of this chapter? How does her mood change through out the story and does that correlate with her philosophy of nature?
2. She understands her role in growth of civilization and she says that she cannot stop it, but what bothers her about growth (117-118)? Do you think we can’t stop such development? Why? Consider the Ideology of Progress.
3. How does Williams relate herself to the land in relation to the area in which she lives? (118)
4. Why do you think Williams jumps from talking about growth into her interests with astrophysics (119)? Does this help lead into the last part of the chapter?
5. Do you think her decision to move at the end is a “good” one? In what senses yes and no? Relate her decision to what her father said on the bottom of 117.
6. What does she mean by “I look up to the stars for guidance” (123)?
“River Music,” Red, 148-150
1. What does she mean by “Completely present”? (149)
2. "Our shadows on the moving water are no different than those cast by the boulders on the bank. Composition. What is the composition of the river, the boulders, these birds, our own flesh?" What does she mean by composition, and why is she asking this question? What kind of comparison is she making? (150)
3. “This river has a muscle when flexed against stone, carved stone, stones that appear as waves of rock, secret knowledge known only through engagement.” What is the effect of speaking of the river as having a muscle? What kind of engagement is she talking about? What is the secret knowledge? (150)
4. What is the significance of music in her description of the river? Does that seem appropriate?
5. What aspects of ecofeminism are involved in this essay?
6. What kind of ecopsychology is involved?
7. What spirituality and philosophy of nature are involved?
8. What kind of literary techniques is she using in this essay? How effective are they? What kind of tone and atmosphere pervade this essay? What is her context and stance?
“Labor,” Red, 154-163
1. What aspects of the “literature of engagement” are found in this essay?
2. In what ways does this essay involved the elements of spirituality and ecopsychology?
3. What are the various meanings of the word “labor” in this essay? There are many; make a list.
4. Part of this essay is her statement about not having children, considered an obligation in the Mormon tradition. How does she reconceive of family, birth, and sacrifice? Look for different meanings of family and in particular birth.
5. What does she mean by “erosion” (160ff) and what significance does that term have?
6. On pages 159, 162, and 163 she repeats the phrase “we can.” What is the tone of her statements? What is she trying to convey? What is her motivation for using this term?
7. She mentions to words free and freedom several times in the essay. What meanings do they words have in the essay?
DESERT QUARTET: Earth, Water, Fire, Air
Questions for all four essays
1. Terry Tempest Williams writes about the body frequently in these essays. Trace the way she describes the body. What different significances does it have? Why is the body so important? What is the relationship between the body and nature writing?
2. Which of the seven elements of nature writing are most prominent? In particular, in what ways are these essays spiritual?
3. How do you react to the passion she presents? Why do you have the reaction you do? What is the relationship between such passion and nature writing?
4. What kind of literary techniques does she use? How effective do you think each one is?
“Earth,” Red, 195-200
1. Why does she say that “No compass can orient me” (195)? What does Williams rely on to get her through the desert to her destination (195-196)?
2. Why are the distances “terrifying” (195)? What does she mean when she says “Nobody really knows the way” (196)?
3. What do you think she is saying about earth and rock compared to humans in the sense of accessibility? (199)
4. What does she mean by “this insistence of being” and why is she unprepared for it (199)?
5. What is the relationship between her body and the rocks (197)? Why might a rock seem “more accessible and yielding than my own species” (199)?
6. What are the different significances and meanings of earth in the essay?
“Water,” Red, 201-204
1. What various roles and significances does the frog have in this essay? What is her relationship to the frog? Why does she have this relationship?
2. In the last paragraph on page 201, Williams seems to have a sexual experience with the rushing water. What do you think this says about her connection to nature?
3. What is the significance of time in the essay (201, 202)? What does she mean by “I feel time in me” (201) and “We are witnesses to this opening of time” (202)?
4. What does she mean by “amphibious” (204)?
5. What are the different significances and meanings of water in the essay?
“Fire,” Red, 205-208
1. What are the different significances and meanings of fire in the essay?
2. What are her different relationships with fire? How does it affect her? Why does she ask “Do I dare to feel the white heat of my heart as a prayer” (206)?
3. What is the significance of moths and bats (207)?
4. What does she mean by inhabiting the canyons inside a divided heart (208)?
5. What is the wildness that “cannot be protected or preserved” (208)? Why can’t it?
6. What is the significance of the candles (208)? What is her relationship to them?
"Air,” Red, 209-212
1. What is the column of wind, what does she do with it, and why (209-210)?
2. Why does she say “In the beginning, there were no words” (209) and “There is no need to speak” (211)?
3. What does she mean by “This is the dreamtime of the desert, the beginning of poetry” (210)?
4. What are the different meanings and significances of “breath” in this essay?
5. At the end she says “This is all there is.” What does she mean by “this”?
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