Things change. Sound familiar? It's one of those ideas we see and hear so often that it can sometimes lose its meaning. But "Passion" is all about recognizing how things change. For instance, things get old. Houses crumble, people get rickety, relationships and memories fade. Change can perceived as both positive and negative, and it's an important and inevitable aspect of being alive.
Questions About Change
- How does Grace notice change when she returns to the Ottawa Valley at the beginning of the story? Have you ever returned to a place and been surprised by how much it changed? How did it make you feel?
- What role does memory play in change? Do you think we're bothered more by the reality of change, or by the fact that maybe what we see doesn't match our memory?
- What sort of change do you tend to think of as sad? What sort of change makes you happy or hopeful? How are these ideas perpetuated or represented in our culture (whether through movies, stories, TV shows, commercials, or whatever else?)? For example, the idea of the Ugly Duckling becoming a Beautiful Swan is nice in a lot of ways, and we see it everywhere: in reality TV, commercials, movies…the actual story of the ugly duckling. But how might it also be depressing? How might it give someone unreasonable expectations for how life should go?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
People change.
People don't change.