Lily's awareness of injustice and prejudice expands enormously throughout the course of the story. When we first meet her, she seems to have a kind of vague awareness of the kinds of prejudices her fellow churchgoers (and father) hold, but it doesn't seem to bother her a whole lot. When Rosaleen announces she wants to register to vote and then gets arrested on her way to do so, however, Lily becomes a lot more interested in questioning the assumptions and prejudices behind injustice.
Questions About Prejudice
- What do you make of Lily's evolving awareness of/sensitivity to racial issues? Do you think she "gets" the historical and political dynamics that are shaping the world around her? How do we know?
- While the topics of slavery, bigotry, and discrimination are threaded throughout Lily's story, the book is still truly Lily's story. Does that reality take away from the novel's attempts to deal with these topics? Why or why not?
- The romance between Lily and Zach is over before it starts because both parties realize the danger the relationship would pose for them (Zach in particular). Do you find the novel's treatment of this relationship realistic? Problematic? Why/why not?
Chew on This
By making topics such as slavery and prejudice the backdrops of a white teenager's story, the novel trivializes the very history it is supposedly trying to present.
Lily deftly deals with topics such as slavery and prejudice, ensuring that their place in history is acknowledged without overstepping—that is, she avoids "speaking for" a history that is not "hers," limiting her comments to her own direct experiences and reflections on her own prejudices.