Discussion questions for Kilmeny of the Orchard

So my book club will be discussing Kilmeny of the Orchard at our next meeting. Since I choose the book, I was curious to see what kind of discussion questions were out there for it.

I found none.

So I decided to create some of my own!

Some of the themes, on the surface of the book, are that love conquers all; unyielding pride causes difficulty not just for the prideful one, but also for their loved ones; eugenics; and the beauty of nature and of people with pure hearts.

1. Let's get the ugly one taken care of right now. The book uses an "Italian peasant" as the villain. It really gives no reason for his bad character except his heritage and "otherness." Near the beginning of the book, "good breeding" is referred to several times as an essential trait for a good match. However, in other respects, this book is very progressive for its time. Coeds are discussed in very positive language and are described as just as capable as the men intellectually. This was before WWII and eugenics were very popular. However, according to most eugenicists, people with any major defect were considered unfit, including those who were deaf or "dumb."
What do you think this book shows about the views on eugenics of the time? How does it align with them? How does it refute them?

2. The book goes into great detail about why Eric is such an eligible match: he's educated, handsome, rich, young, well born, popular, and has a promising future ahead of him. However, it seems like Kilmeny's lack of speech is a very real obstacle to their marriage, as many of the characters (David, Eric, Mrs. Williamson, the Gordons, even Kilmeny herself!) point out. Kilmeny has to be essentially perfect in all other ways to make up for it! Today, something as trivial as being mute would hardly stand in the way of two people in love.
Why do you think this was such an issue in this story?
How do you think this book affected the way people thought of eugenics, especially in respect to physically "unfit" people?

3. What of the sin of the parent being brought upon the innocent child? In the book, the consequence is merely fantastical. However, there are real-life applications of this principle.
When have you seen an innocent suffer from the sins of another person, especially a child?
How does knowing that someone's defects may be caused by another person's sins make you act toward them?

4. Nature is heavily featured in the book. Did you relate to the lyrical descriptions of the sunset, the woods, the flowers, or the orchard? Would you like to see the orchard described in the book? Why?

5. How would it make you feel to be loved as wholly as Kilmeny is, to be seen for you are without having to say a word?

6. What would the world be like if you could look into someone's eyes and tell their character, like Eric, David, and Eric's father can when they meet Kilmeny?

7. Given that Neil is unmistakenly the villain, why do you think that Montgomery puts in the tidbit near the end about him selling his own filly to obtain money for his journey?

8. How do you think we should approach books that espouse a different moral system than our own?




Please, if you find a site that includes discussion questions for this book, link to it in the comments! I would love to see what other questions people have to discuss.

Popular?

Middle school me would have had a hard time believing that one day I'd be one of the popular kids. However, here I am, and I'm part of that elite group in my new ward. Crazy!

I didn't really do anything special to be in the popular group. I just fit the mold: I'm young, I'm educated, I enjoy and have time to read books. I'm even a little bit sporty (ok, ok, all it is is that I run, and that's a newer thing. I'm going to write an update on that soon). Oh yeah. I also have young kids, just like all the other "popular" moms.

I actually feel kind of ridiculous talking about how popular I am.

Anyway, I'm one of those people. They are all nice, kind, and accepting people, but they are the "popular" group and many people in the ward have a hard time feeling like they fit in. Now that I'm in this situation, what am I to do about it?

First things first, let's start with what I have done. I've tried sitting with people in my ward who are not part of the popular group. I really enjoy their company, and they have so many unique talents and experiences. I'm actively trying to get to know everyone in my ward, not just the "popular" ones.

However, this isn't enough. The other "popular" people aren't following my lead. It's kind of funny, because a lot of them are shy or not very outgoing. I think they don't even realize that they're popular! For the situation to change, however, the other "popular" people need to get involved.

One of the things that made it hard for me to fit in when I was younger was that I unwittingly excluded myself from other people and their activities. We didn't share interests, so I thought that they weren't interested in doing things with me. What I didn't understand was that in order to be friends with someone different from you, sometimes you have to put some of your favorite interests on the back burner in order to foster your new friendship.

It's difficult for me to think of activities or conversation starters that don't involve children, books, or a limited amount of exercise. However, the fact of the matter is that there are millions upon millions of people in this world who don't have any interest in even one of those things. If I want to have a well-rounded worldview and include people from many walks of life in my circle of friends--regardless of where I know them from--then I need to learn to branch out, get out of my comfort zone, and take interest in their favorite interests.

Let's not be like Glinda :)

Women in engineering--always in high demand?

Recently, someone alluded to the fact that when I was in college, I was one of the rare women in a male-dominated field. The topic of conversation that led to this was how difficult it is for guys at Georgia Tech to get girlfriends and that most eligible women there were flanked by two or three guys.

The nature of the conversation was such that I was able to say that I had the experience of being one of very few women in my classes, but not what it meant for me or really anything else about it.

I've also seen comics about how women in engineering and other male-dominated subjects have to dress down so they don't get unwanted attention, but then get it anyway.

It wasn't like that for me. Mostly the guys just ignored me.

The closest I came to being in high demand was in my physics class, where there was a significantly higher proportion of women than in my regular engineering classes. It wasn't until near the end of the semester that I realized my two friends (who were not studying engineering and were in classes with a much higher guy/girl ratio) that sat on either side of me both were interested in me.

However, that was only one class during one semester out of the dozens of classes I took while in school. The guys just weren't interested in me. I didn't feel bad about it, though--I wasn't interested in them, either. It would have been nice to have more friends, but it's awkward to have friends that are interested in you. They also probably thought I'd think they were interested in me if they were friendly towards me, which would also make them less likely to befriend me.

So, long story short, not all women in male-dominated fields are in high demand. The end.

Snobby or just shy?

It was the beginning of my sophomore year in college, and I had made my first "D" on a test since starting college. Although most of the students in my class had made either a "D" or an "F", I was very concerned about my grade, especially since one student (helpfully pointed out by our teacher) had made a B on the exam.

There were exactly four women in the class of at least 30 students, and as was usual at my university, seating was not assigned. Three of us women sat together to the side of the middle of the classroom--girls gotta stick together in engineering classes, you know? The overachieving student was the fourth woman in a class full of men, and she sat by herself at the front of the room, on the first row on the opposite side as my group did. She always answered questions perfectly, and seemed to have a snooty air about her when she did so. She didn't seem interested in getting to know the people who sat near her. I assumed that she didn't care to associate with those of us with inferior intellect.

Anyway, back to the "D" on my test. I was very upset by it, as I was used to scoring high grades. The teacher mentioned that there was a copy of the test in the math library with all of the solutions on it. She suggested that we look over it to find our errors. Determined, I made time to go to the math library and find out what was wrong with my test so I could fix it and do better on the next one.

I entered the math library, and asked the attendant about the sample test. He said it was currently checked out, and I'd have to come by a different time. Disappointed, I looked around for a table to do some homework at, since I was already there. As I looked around the library, I saw the overachieving girl from my class. I knew she'd have more answers than I did, and I approached. I asked if we could compare our tests, and she agreed.

As we worked on the test, I started to get to know her. What a wake up call! She was the funniest person I had met in a long time. She was also smart (obviously) and interested in the same kinds of things I was interested in. I found out that she was just shy, just like me! I wanted to hit myself for that one. How many times had I bemoaned the fact that everyone thought I was stuck up just because I didn't know how to talk to people? And then there I was pre-judging her shyness for snobbery. Way to go me, right?

Thankfully, first impressions don't rule everything. Jennifer and I became close friends, and even roomed together for the first semester of my junior year (before my mission). She was so much fun. She even played my favorite game (Boggle) with me almost every night for a whole semester before either one of us got tired of it. We had so much fun together. Just think what I would have missed out on if I hadn't overcome my bias against the supposed "snob"!

LOL! Online gaming as a woman, Part II

So you probably remember my first post about online gaming and getting lots of friend invites right after I made an account with the user name keighdee lady (just trying to rhyme here, folks!). Here is another adventure!

So I'm just going around and minding my own business in the game when all of a sudden I get a personal chat from another player that I've never encountered before, saying, "Will you be my girlfriend?"

Yes, it was THAT brazen. Just out of the blue and not even following the usual game etiquette for making friends--playing at least one game/level before sending a friend request, or at least knowing SOMETHING about the other person.

At first I wasn't sure what to do or say. Then I said in public chat, "lol I'm married." There were a couple of people in the public area that responded, obviously a little stumped by my out-of-the-blue statement. There were at least two people that said something like, "Haha that's so funny," or "lol, marriage is a funny thing."

The person that asked me to be his girlfriend, obviously feeling sheepish, said, "Sorry ma'am," and exited the scene. Poor kid. He was probably some middle- or (young) high-schooler that didn't know much about social norms. He was probably very shocked to have hit on a married woman instead of a single teenage girl ... hehehe.

Image from this site

LOL! - online gaming as a woman

Austin and I recently started playing an online game together. Because of the nature of the game, anyone else that's playing it can bump into us (It's like an MMO but Austin says it's not really massive enough to call it an MMO). We're enjoying the game, and I love spending time with Austin. I never thought I'd play much in the way of video games after about my freshman year in college, but here I am playing and getting good at more than one!

After we'd been playing for about 30 minutes, Austin pointed out to me that I had some messages. I checked them, and there were several friend requests and another request to join someone's guild (meaning that we'd be more likely to play levels together). Austin didn't have any such requests. We didn't think anything of it at the time, but 30 minutes later, I had more requests of the same kind. Austin still didn't have any. This situation stumped us until we realized that my player name was "keighdee-lady" and these guys were probably interested in being my friend because my gender was almost unequivocally female. LOL!

Ugh-Books for Adults

So, seriously, do ALL novels written for adults have to have some sort of allusion to characters having sex (and how they're so casual about it) every 30 pages?! And then every 70 pages or so have a sex scene? A sex scene with intimate details I'd rather not read about? Really??? I know sex scenes have the reputation for being good for business and sales, but really. REALLY. This is why I don't read contemporary books from the adult general fiction section. Too bad for me that sometimes I get tired of the stuff aimed at people 10 years younger than me and try to read something aimed at my age group. Too bad that so much of the nonfiction that is aimed at my demographic is boring and hard to get through and I'd like a little bit of fiction. Too bad. Maybe I should just "get over myself" and read that trash anyway. UGH.


If you like that kind of stuff, fine. Or if you can read the book just for its other content, fine. I'm judging the books, not you. Just please--don't ask me to enjoy these books and don't tell me that I'm somehow less cultured or need to grow up because I can't bear to read them. And don't make me feel bad because you feel bad because I feel bad about the books that you enjoy. Everyone's different. So there.

On Thick Skin and Hurt

I read this today. It was written by a friend in reference to verbal and emotional abuse she experienced at the hands of a family member:

"My skin needs to be 1,000x thicker if I'm to live in this house."

I'm quoting it here, because lately I've been thinking about an experience that illustrates my "thick skin" -- or at least the illusion of it. This isn't really the kind of thing that I usually post, but for some odd reason, I feel like it should be posted. Here it is:

As many of you know, I graduated with a BS in mechanical engineering. What you may not know is that in a discipline (engineering) that is known for being mostly dominated by men, the more specific mechanical engineering is the major that statistically has the smallest percentage of women in it. I have been the only woman in a class of about 30-40 students. Usually there were one or two other women in my classes, but most of my classmates were male. This meant that I was the only woman in most of the class groups I was in and I was the only female in my study group. Sounds great for dating odds, right? However, I was not attracted to them, and if any of the guys were attracted to me, they didn't let me know. The closest any of them came was one guy that I considered my friend who told me (voluntarily) that he could never date me because he'd hate to be in a relationship with a girl that was smarter than him. Was that supposed to be a compliment?

Anyway, since there was such a small percentage of women--and especially women that they weren't trying to impress--the guys seemed to feel free to do and say guy things. Remember that I went to school at a secular university, not BYU. I got used to ignoring most of what they said that wasn't related to class work.

I found it difficult to find friends, since I didn't have similar interests to the people in my classes. Maybe my classmates thought I was stuck up, but I tried hard to let them know that I wasn't. Thankfully I earned good grades, so a lot of the guys were nice to me so I'd help them study. The study groups were helpful to me, too, don't get me wrong! I would have done much more poorly in my classes if I hadn't studied with them. However, the guys felt like I was doing them a big favor by studying with them, so I guess they appreciated it.

One time during finals as my study group was studying, one of the guys who was prone to lewd comments started making "jokes" about the usual things. I tried giving him the benefit of the doubt, hoping that the jokes didn't mean what I thought they might, and laughed at them half-heartedly in order to fit in. I was uncomfortable with his jokes, but didn't want to show it.

Finally, he made a lewd suggestion to me. I was horrified, but was so used to ignoring comments and pretending that I didn't notice certain things that I wasn't sure how to react. I wanted to let him know that that kind of talk was COMPLETELY unacceptable and that I wouldn't stand for it. Although it was (and still is) utterly against my nature to make a scene, I knew that was the only way to get through to him. I told him never to say something like that to me again, picked up my things, and left the room with as much dignity as I could. At that point, I wished I was the kind of person to yell and deliver scathing remarks to make him feel as bad as I wanted to. However, I never had much gift for good comebacks. Nonetheless, I hoped that my actions made him feel as awful as I wanted him to. That experience was awful.

I had such a yucky, dirty feeling even after I left the room that I couldn't concentrate on studying for my next final, which was in about an hour's time. During the time I was trying to study, a member of the study group that was actually my friend had found me and apologized for what had happened. I appreciated the gesture, but since he wasn't at fault it didn't make me feel any better. After about 5 or 10 minutes of trying to study in one of the computer labs, I gave up and went to the LDS Institute building.

It was like night and day! As soon as I entered the building, one of my friends greeted me with a smile and told me how happy she was every time she saw me (thanks, Megan Prack!). My spirits were uplifted. After some visiting and de-stressing by playing the piano, I was able to do some more last-minute studying and took my final with an undisturbed mind.

The classmate that had made the lewd comments still made the same kind of comments after that incident, but none of them were directed at me, thankfully. At one point, I remember him telling me that I was a really kind person. At the time, I didn't connect it to this incident (and it may not be connected at all), but maybe, just maybe, my actions made him think twice about what he'd said. When he told me that I was a kind person, I remember replying, "Well, I try." I didn't expect much of a reaction to that, but he looked at me like it was a novel idea. "Nice people try to be nice? Who'da thunk? I thought they were born that way!"