Under Milk Wood
Dylan Thomas
Contains spoilers for the entire book.
Discussion topics
Topic 01 of 08
A play for voices
How did reading Under Milk Wood compare with hearing it, as it was written to be heard on the radio?
Keep the conversation going
- What do the First and Second Voices do that a narrator could not?
- Which passage did you read aloud, or want to?
There is no single right answer. Bring your own reading.
Discussion topics
How did reading Under Milk Wood compare with hearing it, as it was written to be heard on the radio?
Keep the conversation going
- What do the First and Second Voices do that a narrator could not?
- Which passage did you read aloud, or want to?
Which of the townspeople's dreams in the opening night stayed with you?
Keep the conversation going
- Why does the play begin in sleep?
- What do the dreams show that the day hides?
Why is the blind Captain Cat the town's watcher and its memory?
Keep the conversation going
- How did you respond to his dreams of his drowned shipmates and Rosie Probert?
- What is he mourning?
What do the love stories of the town, from Mog Edwards and Myfanwy Price to Polly Garter, have in common?
Keep the conversation going
- Which of the town's loves did you find funniest or saddest?
- How did you respond to Polly Garter's song?
What did you make of the marriages of Mr and Mrs Pugh and of Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard and her two dead husbands?
Keep the conversation going
- Is the play mocking marriage or celebrating its oddities?
- Why are these characters so easy to imagine?
What do the Reverend Eli Jenkins's morning and evening poems add to the play?
Keep the conversation going
- How does he see the town and its sinners?
- What do his prayers suggest about the spirit of the place?
How does Dylan Thomas's language, its compound words and rhythms, make the town come alive?
Keep the conversation going
- Which phrase stayed with you longest?
- Is the play poetry, drama or something else?
How does the play's shape, from night to night again, give it its feeling?
Keep the conversation going
- Why do you think Thomas chose such an ordinary day?
- What does the play leave you feeling about small places and the people in them?
There is no single right answer. Bring your own reading.