Plot Points
what time of day does the story take place?
What is evening?
What economic period influences the family's life?
What is the Great Depression?
What is the narrator’s brother doing while they wait in the car?
What is sleeping?
What point of view is used in the story?
What is first-person?
What does the father remove before dancing?
What is his shoes?
What is the narrator's father's job?
What is door-to-door salesman for Walker Brothers?
What building do they pass that feels eerie to the narrator?
What is the funeral parlor?
What does Nora offer the narrator to drink?
What is orange pop?
What literary device is used when the narrator reflects on adult topics with childlike innocence?
What is irony/dramatic irony?
What does the narrator say Lake Huron smells like?
What is tar?
Where do the father and daughter go that feels secretive?
What is Nora's house?
What role does the road trip play in the story's structure?
What is a journey into the father's past or emotional territory?
What color is Nora's dress that she changes into?
What is green, yellow, and brown?
What type of imagery is most prominent during the visit to Nora’s house?
What is sensual or emotional imagery?
What detail does the narrator note about Nora’s house interior?
What is that it’s tidy, quiet, and has a picture of Christ on the wall?
What is implied about the father's past that he does not explicitly share with his daughter?
What is a former romantic relationship with Nora or a happier pre-Depression life?
What does the act of selling door-to-door represent metaphorically?
What is survival or the performance of identity?
How does the narrator describe her father’s dancing?
What is smooth or confident, like he’s done it many times before?
What literary device is suggested by the repeated references to dust, dryness, and heat throughout the story?
What is motif or atmospheric symbolism?
What kind of hat does the father wear?
What is a creamy straw hat?
How many steps do they climb to get to Nora’s front door?
What is 3?
What do the telephone wires or utility poles resemble to the narrator?
What is a row of gallows or soldiers?
What does the narrator's father give Nora before leaving her house?
What is a bottle of liniment?
What does the narrator say her brother’s feet look like while he’s sleeping?
What is "white and limp as roots”?
What sound is used to describe the countryside on the drive?
What is cicadas/insects buzzing?