Their chorus, Greek in format, shows the insularity and defiance of a small, loving community. How does Luke's sense of masculinity change, before and after his injury? How does the author explore masculinity in the depiction of Nadia's father, a professional military man who must learn to connect with his daughter? Do you think that, in the end, both father and daughter have found a way to communicate and show their love to each other?įamily and community: The novel has a distinct nucleus, made up of 'The Mothers,' the elderly women of the black church community who watch over the small-town goings-on with a presence that evokes the tone of a fable. Later in the book he befriends a male physical therapist who shows Luke that he, too, has the potential for ministering to the sick or injuredwhich is a sort of 'mothering' in itself. He must struggle to redefine his own sense of himself, his potential and expectations, and what kind of man he wants to be.

Issues of masculinity: Luke was a star high school football player who was destined for a great college athletic scholarship and career, but then a career-ending injury changed everything. Why do you think Nadia makes the choices she does? How do these choices affect her life, Luke's life, and even the larger community? The Mothers strives to handle teen pregnancy with compassion and wisdom, portraying it as a life-transforming experience with incalculable ramifications. Teen pregnancy: When Nadia is confronted with the possibility of parenthood at age 17 (a situation she knows her mother faced with Nadia's own birth), she must make decisions that she understands will change her life forever, regardless of whether the pregnancy is carried to term. How does the author approach identity in relation to race? How must Nadia change the way she interacts with people inside or outside of her community?

Luke, her boyfriend, is a young black man from the same school and community, but when he ends up in the hospital, he becomes conscious of how the wonderful Hispanic male nurse suffers from others' stereotypes. She comports herself slightly differently in these different worlds. Racial and cultural identity: Nadia is a black teen who goes to a black church but a mostly white school, on the edge of a military base. To what degree do you think her discomfort about her ambition is just in her head, and to what degree do you think her community sees her as an outsider because of it? Why is leaving home so revolutionary for Nadia? What can her academic accomplishments give her that her home community cannot? She is ambitiousin part to make up for the limits her own existence imposed upon her motherbut she is also made to feel uncomfortable about how her ambition makes her different. Teen identity: The main character, Nadia, is the only person in her family to go to college and one of the few from her church community to leave after high school.

The mothers by bennett