Mother night, ch. 1
Reading comprehension: Why is Howard in jail and going to trial?
Vocabulary: archæology
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“How nearly forgotten it is, even by the Jews—the young Jews, that is.”
Discussion: What do you think would be a war crime? Who would handle the
trial? Are any war crime trials happening now?
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Mother night, ch. 2
Reading comprehension: Why is Andor Gutman ashamed? Do you think he
should be? Why or why not?
Vocabulary: Auschwitz
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “He
spent two years in the extermination camp at Auschwitz.”
Discussion: Why do you think many of the very few survivors of the Nazi
extermination camps felt something psychologists call “survivor guilt,” and how
does it affect the way we read this book if we know the author spent some time
as a US POW in a Nazi camp?
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Mother night, ch. 3
Reading comprehension: “Give it to those complacent bastards!” These words
have connotations similar to complacent. Which one has the most negative
connotation?
a) comfortable
b) careless
c) unconcerned
d) self-confident
Vocabulary: connotation
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “I
was such a pure and terrifying Aryan…”
Discussion: “the things a man does to stay alive” What are the worst things
people do to stay alive? What things are so bad that people would rather die
than do? How do people choose?
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Mother night, ch. 4
Reading comprehension: “Every job was a job to do” These words have
denotations similar to job. Which word has the meaning nearest to job in the
sentence above?
a) career
b) profession
c) task
d) paycheck
Vocabulary: denotation
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Both jobs felt about the same.”
Discussion: “Both jobs felt about the same.” What is the author’s opinion about
Bernard Mengle? What do you think about his thoughts on his “jobs,” as he
calls them?
----- ----- ----English 9, Test 2, 9/18
Mother night, ch. 5
Reading comprehension: If Mother night’s first chapter is set in 1961, Howard
tells us about earlier times in his life, then the text hints at things to happen in
the future, what text structure devices is the author using?
a) problem-solution
b) comparison-contrast
c) flashback-foreshadowing
d) definition-model for action
Vocabulary: irony
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“‘What could be worse than Hell?’ he asked.”
Discussion: What does the author want us to understand by writing that Hitler
liked Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address? How does irony play a role in this story so
far? For example, consider that Howard says he is a Nazi by reputation.
Mengel pretends to be dead to save his own life. Arpad pretends to be a Nazi
searching for the Jewish Resistance mole—himself.
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Mother night, ch. 6
Reading comprehension: What about New York was so terrible for Howard, so
terrible that he called it worse than Hell? Note: the chapter doesn’t answer this
question directly—inference is required.
Vocabulary: inference
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “I
often longed for someone to give that cry for me.”
Discussion: What could be worse than Hell?
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Mother night, ch. 7
Reading comprehension: If a student were going to write an essay about
Howard, would it make more sense to describe Howard as the definition of a
(good or bad) patriot or a (good or bad) model of action? Why?
Vocabulary: parallel structure (in grammar)
Grammar: Choose the best way below to rewrite this sentence: “Howard was
born in the USA, moved to Germany, and was an author.” If there is no
mistake, choose Correct as is.
a) Howard born in the USA, moved to Germany, and was an author.
b) Howard was born in the USA, moved to Germany, and an author.
c) Howard was born in the USA, moved to Germany, and became an author.
d) Correct as is
Discussion: There are many intentional mysteries at this point—how/why did
Howard work for the Nazis? How/why did he leave Germany and return to the
US? What happened to his wife? How did he end up in Jerusalem? Why do
you think the author makes us wait 25 pages to read, “I was born…,” and then
begin telling about Howard’s earlier life? Why do you think the story jumps
around in time?
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Mother night, ch. 8
Reading comprehension: How did Howard work as a spy for the US—what
exactly did he do as a spy?
Vocabulary: treason
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “I
committed high treason, crimes against humanity, crimes against my own
conscience, and I got away with them until now.”
Discussion: When Howard says, “Those things fade,” what does he mean?
When Dr. Epstein says, “they should fade…should be forgotten as quickly as
possible,” what does he mean? When people visiting Dachau
(http://www.billpetro.com/HolidayHistory/hol/dachau_files/image002.jpg or
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/KZDachau/DachauLife01A
.html) today see a memorial with the idea, “never again,” written in five
languages, what do they decide? What do you conclude?
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Mother night, ch. 9
Reading comprehension: Who and why does Howard call his blue fairy
godmother?
Vocabulary: retrospect
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Only in retrospect can I think of them as trailing slime behind.”
Discussion: Do you believe that, “this war isn’t going to let anybody stay in a
peaceful trade,” that everyone must take a side in war and no one can remain
neutral?
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Mother night, ch. 10
Reading comprehension: “Only one thing mattered…Das Reich der Zwei” What
was that one thing mattered to Howard, and why was it so important?
Vocabulary: unconditional love/ tough love
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “No
young person on earth is so excellent in all respects as to need no uncritical
love.”
Discussion: Do you believe Howard’s claim that, “No young person on earth is
so excellent in all respects as to need no uncritical love.” This is often the kind
of explanation given for why abused children/women still feel love for and want
love from the adults/men who abuse them. What do you think: is love so
important that people will accept perverted, unhealthy, mutated versions of it—
even from Nazis, from violent predators, or from dangerous criminals? Was
Howard’s and Helga’s love real if she didn’t know that he was a spy?
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Mother night, ch. 11
Reading comprehension: Why does Howard say that Kraft had a kind of
schizophrenia as a spy?
Vocabulary: schizophrenia
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
Choose the best way below to rewrite this sentence: “Always alone, I drank
toasts to her, say good night to her, to play music for her, and wasn’t giving a
damn for one thing else.” If there is no mistake, choose Correct as is.
a) Always alone, I drinking toasts to her, said good night to her, will play music
for her, and give a damn for one thing else
b) Always alone, I drank toasting to her, said happily to her, played sweet for
her, and didn’t give in my mind for one thing else
c) Always alone, I drank toasts to her, said good night to her, played music for
her, and didn’t give a damn for one thing else
d) Correct as is
Discussion: Do you believe that pretending to be someone you’re not is a kind
of mental illness? The actor Nick Nolte who plays Howard in the film says that
actors get paid to act crazy in this way—pretending to be someone they’re not.
Do you think it takes a special kind of person to be a good actor? Or do you
believe (as Howard and the author Vonnegut seem to believe) that pretending
to be someone we’re not causes a kind of mental illness? Remember the line
from the introduction, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful
what we pretend to be.”
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Mother night, ch. 12
Reading comprehension: What kind of newspaper was The White Christian
Militiaman? What real organization has similar (stupid) beliefs?
Vocabulary: scabrous
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“The White Christian Militiaman was a scabrous, illiterate, anti-Semitic, antiNegro, anti-Catholic hate sheet”
Discussion: What do you think most US soldiers would think of Howard (from
what they knew about his being not only a Nazi propagandist but also a US
citizen who wore a Nazi uniform?
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Mother night, ch. 13
Reading comprehension: Why did Howard write a whole chapter of biography
about Lionel Jones, if Jones was ignorant and insane?
Vocabulary: degenerate
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Jones began to detect proof of degeneracy in the teeth of Catholics and
Unitarians.”
Discussion: Do you think some people really study teeth, or maybe skulls, and
decide something about people’s way of living or thinking is caused by their
genetics? Do you believe that the skull, teeth, heart, brain, liver, stomach, or
other body part could be studied after death to decide why some people are
good, honest, heroes, and other people are bad, dishonest, cowards?
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Mother night, ch. 14
Reading comprehension: What titles do Jones, Krapptauer, Keeley, and Wilson
like to use, and what do the titles mean?
Vocabulary: persecution/prosecution
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “A
blow against the Jews is a blow against our common humanity.”
Discussion: Why do you think a woman would say, “If there is no room [in your
life for me anymore], I will simply say goodbye again, disappear, and never
bother you again” to a man? What do you think a man would answer? Why?
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Mother night, ch. 15
Reading comprehension: What “was part of the ghastly routine of any
thoroughly modern, thoroughly scientific, thoroughly asexual nation at
thoroughly modern war,” and what does the author think of it?
Vocabulary: leprosy
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “A
slower doom, a doom that killed like leprosy, awaited her.”
Discussion: What ways of slow death can you imagine? What kind of bad living
would make a person die slowly?
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Mother night, ch. 16
Reading comprehension: What happened in the Crimea, in Ukraine, in Siberia,
and in Dresden? Where are these places?
Vocabulary: subdue
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “I
was there for eight years, mercifully hypnotized by simple routines.”
Discussion: Why does the author introduce the riddle of the Sphinx? What
story does it come from, and what does it have to do with this story?
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Mother night, ch. 17
Reading comprehension: What did Wilson mean by, “Who’s gonna pick up the
torch when everybody’s dead?” and what would his answer be?
Vocabulary: malevolent
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“The colored people gonna rise up in righteous wrath, and they’re gonna take
over the world.”
Discussion: What do you think about Wilson’s ideas listed below? Why?
a) “The colored people gonna rise up,”
b) “White folks finally gonna lose,”
c) “The colored people gonna have hydrogen bombs,”
d) “The rest of the colored folks gonna give [Japan] the honor of dropping the
first one,” and
e) “[Japan will] drop it…[on] China”
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Mother night, ch. 18
Reading comprehension: What was the Free America Corps, why do you think
only the number who joined did, and why do you think those who joined did?
Vocabulary: celibacy
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“since I don’t draw very well, I had drawn six-pointed stars of David rather than
five-pointed stars of the USA.”
Discussion: What do you think of Werner Noth’s statement that Howard, “could
never had served the enemy as well as you served us,” and if it is true, does
that make Howard, a hero or a traitor?
----- ----- ----ch 19
Reading comprehension: Fill in the blanks with the meaning (not exact words)
from the old soldier to Howard: If you don’t ____________, somebody will
probably _____________________.
Vocabulary: amphibian
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“He now began to talk of all sorts of wounds”
Discussion: Why does Resi say, “It won’t hurt when I get killed…Just all of a
sudden I won’t be anymore,” and what do you think of her attitude?
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ch. 20
Reading comprehension: How could Werner Noth be hanged nine times? Why
wouldn’t once kill him?
Vocabulary: nihilist
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Merely to be in custody, with or without trial, was a crime.”
Discussion: Was Howard telling the truth when he said, “the magazine cover
had lied,” why do you think the magazine editors used different women on the
cover, and what do you think the author of the novel means by it all?
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Mother night, ch. 21
Reading comprehension: What does it mean to “give the Blarney Stone a kiss
for me,” and how does it relate to the novel?
Vocabulary: ration
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “I
love my motorcycle more than I loved my wife.”
Discussion: Why do you think Heinz loaned Howard the motorcycle that he
said he loved more than his wife? What other stories have you heard of where
soldiers are exceptionally loyal (or disloyal) to each other?
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Mother night, ch. 22
Reading comprehension: Explain Howard’s poem about the steam roller,
particularly the line, “’Lie down, lie down!’ the people cried. ‘The great machine
is history. ’”
Vocabulary: monogamous
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“We went to see where history’d been, and my the dead did stink so.”
Discussion: What does Howard mean by, “It’s all I’ve seen, all I’ve been
through,” and what do you think would be the best therapy for him? What do
you imagine many Nazi concentration camp survivors say is the only thing that
makes them feel better about their terrible memories/past experiences, and
what do you think about the answer given in class?
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Mother night, ch. 23
Reading comprehension: What did she mean when she said, “I’m not Helga,”
and, if it’s true, how could Howard not know?
Vocabulary: armistice
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Maybe you’ve changed so much you don’t love me anymore.”
Discussion: What do you think of Howard’s statement that, “it’s so damn cheap,
so damn typical…the living couldn’t keep their grubby hands off of it, wanted
the glory of the dead for themselves,” and explain another example where the
memory of the past was kept in respect or forgotten.
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Mother night, ch. 24
Reading comprehension: When Howard says, “God forgive me, I accepted
Resi as my Helga again,” what does he mean?
Vocabulary: quintessence
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“War must be a very sexy thing to Americans.”
Discussion: Do you think Howard was right or wrong to accept Resi as his
Helga again? Why?
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Mother night, ch. 25
Reading comprehension: When Howard thinks, “Oh, God—the lives people try
to lead,” what does he mean?
Vocabulary: communism
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Oh, God—what a world they try to lead them in.”
Discussion: Why is this chapter so short? What does the author want us to
understand from chapter 25? Why doesn’t he explain more clearly his
meaning? Why does he want us to try to figure it out?
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Mother night, ch. 26
Reading comprehension: When the man says, “Everybody else has forgot it,”
what does the man mean by that?
Vocabulary: complicity
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “I
brought you this…so you could save everybody a lot of trouble.”
Discussion: Why do you think the soldier is so mad at Howard? Do you believe
that soldiers would really do something like this?
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Mother night, ch. 27
Reading comprehension: When Robert says, “Ain’t like just having a Jew here
and a Jew there after you,” what does he mean by that?
Vocabulary: masochism
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “He
was the only person in this country I knew I could trust.”
Discussion: Which would be worse, having a whole foreign country’s
government and international police hunting for you for arrest and trial, or
having individuals in your own country hating you and searching for you,
wanting to beat you up?
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Mother night, ch. 28
Reading comprehension: What was it that… “recalled the stink, diseased
twilight, humid resonance, and vile privacy of a stall in a public lavatory—
echoed exactly the soul’s condition in a man at war,” and what do you think of
the metaphor?
Vocabulary: ludicrous
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Maybe we’ll all end up thanking God it happened.”
Discussion: What do you think of Kraft’s saying, “I discovered something I had
never known before—what a true friend was,” and would you like to have a
friend lke Kraft?
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Mother night, ch. 29
Reading comprehension: When Eichmann said, “I could spare you a few,” what
did he mean by that?
Vocabulary: bureaucrat
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “I
always know when I am tell a lie, am capable of imagining the cruel
consequences of anybody’s believing my lies, know cruelty is wrong.”
Discussion: Do you believe that, “a propagandist of my sort was as much a
murderer as [any of the Nazi bosses],” and that the punishment should be the
same? Do you believe that anyone in the Nazi trials after WWII was hanged for
creating propaganda?
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Mother night, ch. 30
Reading comprehension: What did Howard said, “The afternoons and the
evenings and the nights…That’s all the time I’ll be able to give you,” what did
he mean, and why did he say it like that?
Vocabulary: eulogy
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“From Mexico City we would go exploring by automobile, would seek some
secret village in which to spend the rest of our days.”
Discussion: How do you think Howard feels to be asked to write and deliver a
eulogy for Krapptauer? What would you say about him and his life?
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Mother night, ch. 31
Reading comprehension: What does the line, “There are no atheists in
foxholes,” mean, and how does it fit into this novel?
Vocabulary: infamy
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “All
I can say is that I didn’t believe them [the speeches I broadcast for the Nazis],
knew full well what ignorant, destructive, obscenely jocular things I was
saying.”
Discussion: Do you believe that, “Krapptauer’s sort of truth would probably be
with mankind forever, as long as there were men and women around who
listened with their hearts instead of their minds,” or do you believe hateful
prejudice is uncurable?
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Mother night, ch. 32
Reading comprehension: What does it mean that Wirtanen would have “no
weapon” and “Neither did he wear any symbol of rank or unit,” and why?
Vocabulary: espionage
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“You give me hell for that—knowing what you do?”
Discussion: What do you think Howard would have done if Germany had won
the war? Do you believe Howard was a Nazi? Wirtanen says, “Certainly you
were.” Does this surprise you the way it surprises Howard?
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Mother night, ch. 33
Reading comprehension: What did it mean that Wirtanen was “called out of
retirement as a specialist,” and why did they need Wirtanen? Why couldn’t
some other spy boss do the job?
Vocabulary: infantry
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Man, I think, is an infantry animal.”
Discussion: How would Howard feel to learn that “The girls, Resi Noth—and
the old man…called George Kraft…They’re both communist agents,” and how
is it ironic that these spies spied on Howard, and he trusted them?
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Mother night, ch. 34
Reading comprehension: When Howard said, “alles kaput,” what did he mean?
Vocabulary: fascist
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“They want to exhibit you to the world as a prime example of the sort of Fascist
war criminal this country shelters.”
Discussion: What do you think would happen to someone taken to an enemy
country and exhibited as a war criminal? What do you think should be done
with war criminals?
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Mother night, ch. 35
Reading comprehension: How does Howard’s story about the Holy Grail fit into
this novel? What does it mean to the novel that the author Howard forgot a
story that he wrote himself?
Vocabulary: Holy Grail
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“The Holy Grail appears to them, signifying that Heaven does not despise love
like theirs.”
Discussion: Why might a tough government, even a dictatorship that controls
almost every part of life, allow illegal pornography/eroticism when the people
are “suffering from shortages of everything but men and women,” and how
might that make running the country a little easier?
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Mother night, ch. 36
Reading comprehension: When Howard says, “By God—they even found a
use for my squeal,” what does he mean by that?
Vocabulary: coup de grâce
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Real originality is a capital crime, often calling for cruel and unusual
punishment in advance of the coup de grâce.”
Discussion: Do you think it would be possible for the Iron Guardsmen to
educate their parents? Why or why not?
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Mother night, ch. 37
Reading comprehension: Why does Howard ask George and Resi, “You know
[Colonel Iona] Popatov?”
Vocabulary: preoccupied
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “‘I
find it very easy to love you,’ said Resi.”
Discussion: If you discovered that pretend friends were plotting against you,
would you confront them the way Howard did or differently?
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Mother night, ch. 38
Reading comprehension: Explain the “cuckoo clock in Hell.”
Vocabulary: totalitarian
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear,
though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of
teeth…”
Discussion: What do you think of Howard’s/Vonnegut’s metaphor on the
totalitarian mind? How would you explain how some people can drive their
cars, pay their bills, go to work and not get fired for being idiotic, but still believe
and organize their lives around nonsensical prejudices?
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Mother night, ch. 39
Reading comprehension: What does it mean if Kraft “built an apparatus
composed almost entirely of American agents,” and why would his superiors
want to shoot him for doing so?
Vocabulary: cyanide
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Who else could play a Russian spy who built an apparatus composed almost
entirely of American agents?”
Discussion: What did Resi do after she said, “I can show you something
interesting,” why did she do it, and what do you think of her doing so? Why?
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Mother night, ch. 40
Reading comprehension: Why did Howard freeze, and why did he move again?
Vocabulary: injustice
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “I
had absolutely no reason to move in any direction.”
Discussion: Why does Vonnegut use the repetition of “It was not…It was
not…It was not” to explain Howard’s situation, and how does the repetition help
explain the situation?
----- ----- ----Mother night, ch. 41
Reading comprehension:
Why do lightning bugs (or fireflies) glow? Why are people glowing in the novel?
How does the lightning bug metaphor fit into the novel?
Vocabulary: juvenile delinquents
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“Sometimes a certain chemical will get loose after a woman’s had a baby, and
she’ll kill the baby.”
Discussion: Do you believe that chemical medicine can fix all psychological
problems?
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Mother night, ch. 42
Reading comprehension: When the man says, “She’s a
woman…hysterical…they get hysterical…she doesn’t mean it,” why does the
man speak in aposiopesis, and how does it fit into the novel?
Vocabulary: hysterical
hysterectomy
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence: “we
realized we were ordinary people, without dove or covenant, and that the flood,
far from being over, had scarcely begun.”
Discussion: Do you believe that the teacher’s children would never again “bat
an eye,” and what would such a person’s life be like?
----- ----- ----Mother night, ch. 43
Reading comprehension: When Bernard said, “…then it hit me—why I was
alive, and what the main thing was I was supposed to do,” what did he mean?
Vocabulary: vilify
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“[evil] is that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants
to hate with God on its side.”
Discussion: When Howard says about hate and evil, “Where’s evil? It’s that
large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with
God on its side,” is he right or not? Why?
----- ----- ----Mother night, ch. 44
Reading comprehension: Why does Vonnegut again use the German,
Leichenträger zu Wache, and how does it compare here to the use in chapter
2?
Vocabulary: infamy
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence(s):
“…let me remember. I can remember. Every minute I can remember.”
Discussion: What do you think Ms. Epstein means by, “In Germany, too…when
the SS or the Gestapo…took somebody away…other peope…wanting to do
something patriotic…took away the light bulbs,” and what do you think the
author Vonnegut means by having her say it?
----- ----- ----Mother night, ch. 45
Reading comprehension: When Howard writes, “[children] are spying on real
grownups all the time, learning what they fight about, what they’re greedy for,
how they satisfy their greed, why and how they lie, what makes them go crazy,
the different ways they go crazy,” is he simply wasting time making silly jokes,
or does he really believe it? Why?
Vocabulary: prosecution
Grammar—mark the part of speech (article, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb,
adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) of each word in the sentence:
“The hare of history once more overtakes the tortoise of art.”
Discussion: Why does Howard say, “I hope that the tune I am about to hear is
not Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas,’” and why does Vonnegut end the novel
with the question, Auf wiedersehen? What are we supposed to understand
from the ending of this novel?