16. When Sonny goes to see Mr. and Mrs. Zuniga what do you think he is hungry for? What is their role in the novel?
17. Discuss the leitmotif of Sonny’s determination to learn French and the pleasure that the learning of the language seems to give to him. He states to himself toward the end of the novel that “It was a game I was playing, not a want” (p. 203). But in many ways it has come to represent more. What might it signify to him? Consider his final thoughts about French in the last lines of the novel, “No. Non. That made a smile. I liked that I smiled and that I wasn’t scared.”
18. Find examples of humor in the novel. Certainly the twins and their juvenile jokes undercut some of the tension, and allow Sonny to have an outlet for much needed youthful spontaneous laughter. Are there other elements of humor? Often in life, humor and sadness are not far apart. Can you find instances of this—perhaps in Sonny’s easy baiting of Cloyd and Bud, or in the arguments that Cloyd and Silvia have.
19. Given the stories of fractured love, broken dreams, and human unkindness that crisscross through the novel, it would seem that The Flowers should be deeply depressing, and yet there are flashes of beauty and a deep undercurrent of hope. Discuss. To what extent would you agree that Sonny himself is a symbol of hope with his ability to flit back and forth across different cultural boundaries?
20. The novel ends with a pure moment of love, a selfless act, as Sonny sends Nica by bus to Mexico. Their young love shines bravely against the squalid backdrop of the shabby bus station, above the terrifying commotion of the riots—a romantic and unlikely ending perhaps. Were you able to find truth in their actions, that love and hope can flourish, that sometimes reality can be pushed to one side for a little while? Do you think Sonny believed in the reality of what he was doing or was he playing a game? What do you think the future at Los Flores—and beyond—holds for him? For Nica? How far do you think Sonny was rescuing his mother from her own predicament by liberating Nica?
21. While freeing Nica from the prison that her stepfather has created for her, enabling her to laugh again and to seek out her own freedom, Sonny affects change in himself too. How? Is the act of sending her to Mexico really a selfless one, or is it a way for him to assuage his guilt about stealing Cloyd’s money? How has Sonny grown during the novel? Has he lived up to his mother’s hopes that he will become a man?
22. This novel has a sense of raw urgency to it that might come from Gilb writing very much from personal experience. Discuss the effect that the intensity of his writing had on you. Did you find that the lives of the characters, with their hopes of love and happiness, move from the personal to the universal and in doing so move this novel from the overly narrow confines of Chicano literature into the domain of world literature?
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING:
Drown by Junot Díaz; Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie; Gritos by Dagoberto Gilb; Slapboxing with Jesus by Victor LaValle; Chicano by Richard Vasquez; The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
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