Look Homeward, Angel
Thomas Wolfe
Contains spoilers for the entire book.
Discussion topics
Topic 01 of 08
The Gants
What did you make of Eugene's parents, Gant the stonecutter with his drinking and rhetoric, and Eliza with her property and thrift?
Keep the conversation going
- Which of them shapes Eugene more?
- How does the novel make such difficult people so vivid?
There is no single right answer. Bring your own reading.
Discussion topics
What did you make of Eugene's parents, Gant the stonecutter with his drinking and rhetoric, and Eliza with her property and thrift?
Keep the conversation going
- Which of them shapes Eugene more?
- How does the novel make such difficult people so vivid?
What does the marble angel in Gant's shop come to mean through the novel?
Keep the conversation going
- Why does Gant never carve the angel he dreamed of?
- How does the title connect to that angel?
How does Eliza's boarding house, Dixieland, change the family's life?
Keep the conversation going
- Why does Eugene feel so homeless in his own home?
- What does the novel say about money and love in a family?
Why does Eugene feel himself a stranger from childhood on?
Keep the conversation going
- How did you respond to his hunger for books, places and experience?
- Did you recognise anything of yourself in his loneliness?
What does the teacher Margaret Leonard give Eugene that his family cannot?
Keep the conversation going
- Why does her school matter so much to him?
- Who else, in your experience, plays that role in a young person's life?
Why is Eugene's brother Ben the heart of the novel for so many readers?
Keep the conversation going
- How did you respond to Ben's death?
- What does the family's behaviour at his deathbed reveal?
What does Eugene's summer love for Laura James teach him?
Keep the conversation going
- Why does it end as it does?
- How does the novel capture first love?
How did you respond to the final scene, when Eugene meets Ben's ghost in the square at night?
Keep the conversation going
- What does Eugene take with him as he leaves Altamont?
- Did the novel's rich, overflowing prose draw you in or wear you out?
There is no single right answer. Bring your own reading.