Reading Questions for Winter in the Blood by James Welch

Parts I and II, poem and pages 1-125
Parts III, IV, V, and the Epilogue, pages 126-76

Parts I and II, poem and pages 1-125

1. Read the poem: read it out loud; then, read "critically"–put your analytical skills to work.

2. As usual, get the characters straight, the plot line, themes, characterization, structure of the book, points of view, narrator(s) language and imagery, tone; be able to point to the textual evidence.

3. Write down your questions–we'll start our discussion with these.

4. What are the connections (specifically) to Harjo's and Hogan's poetry and prose?

5. What are the most important events in the story in these first 2 large sections? do you see any possible principle behind the smaller numbered sections–theme, topic, character, temporal or spatial division, etc.?

6. Part I, begins with a homecoming; how does this one compare with Angel's?

7. How would you describe the relationships between these characters?

8. How does Welch tell us about the past? about the narrator's father? what kind of a man is the father?

9. Who is Lame Bull? Who is "[o]ld woman"? How does she make her presence and thoughts known (a voice, perhaps)?

10. What are the animals in this story? What is the relationship of these characters with the animals–and with the land? with each other?

11. Who is Amos? What does the narrator learn about his father that disorients him?

12. What is this business about memory in section 9? How does it compare with the notions of memory in Solar Storms?

13. Note the references to whiteness–what is referred to and where in the narrative these references fall.

14. What does he mean when he says his father "was always in transit" on page 21?

15. What kind of mothers are described in WB? What kind of fathers have we met?

16. Note the two conversations going on at the same time in section 11.

17. What does the grandmother think of the narrator's wife and why? What are the stories told in this novel?

18. Note the recurring references to "fish."

19. There is an historic reference on page 36 to a raid (1883-84)–what is his grandmother's story?

20. The rest of Part I takes place in Malta; who does he meet here? how are these introduced to us? how would you describe the presentation of the events that take place here? Who talks about a memory here?

21. On page 57, the narrator talks about a feeling–what does he feel? what other feelings have you noted before this remark?

Part II, 61-126

22. Section 18 begins with Bird, a calf and the narrator; he mentions the horse's "storm" (there have been other mentions of storms as well). We meet Yellow Calf; what is their conversation about and how would you describe YC? (compare him, i.e., to Lame Bull, to First Raise, to the narrator).

23. We have seen Lame Bull's pride in being a "proprietor"; what would you say is Theresa's opinion about his status?

24. Who does the narrator meet in the Beany's?

25. Who does he meet on the streets the next day?

26. What is the "airplane man's" plan? How does it work out? (Did you laugh?)

27. What does he feel–why do you think he is feeling this now?

28. He describes a memory with his brother Mose and the next section describes this; section 26 begins with the line "Randolph Scott had plugged me dead with a memory." What do you think this means (the actor mentioned appeared often in westerns and, par for the course, got his "Indian")?

29. This line is not explained but rather, we are back in the present and he meets Agnes in the bar; what do you think will happen to these two? We are back with Mose and the narrator; then, on the streets of Havre again and he drinks to "dim the memory"; then–Randolph Scott is once more mentioned on page117–why?

30. When does he next see the "airplane man"? What do you make of his walking out on Marlene (without considering page 125) and his observations in the last paragraph on page 124?

31. Section 31 ends Part II, with the narrator leaving Havre–how does he regard himself now? has anything changed since we first met him?

Parts III, IV and the Epilogue, pages 126-76

1. Part III is very short in relation to the Parts I and II; in these 20 pages, the narrator returns home and we learn of two deaths.

2. We also see the same strategies of dual conversations, embedding the past within the present and sparse observations. What has changed within the narrator–and where in the text do you see this?

3. What is revealed in Part IV? About First Raise? Yellow Calf? Grandmother? the 1883-84 incident?

4. How would describe the tone of the novel at this point? Has it changed from that at the beginning of the novel?

5. What happens to the narrator on page 158-59?

6. We began the book with the talk of "distance"; here, there is more talk of distance as well–what is this distance? has any "distance" been closed?

7. We have seen occasional references to blood; on page 160, there is another–what are our thoughts about this "blood"?

8. What about section 40? Why is it here?

9. A storm is coming–what do storms "do"?

10. The narrator wonders "[I] wondered if Mose and First Raise were comfortable. They were the only ones I really loved." What occurred to you as you read this paragraph?

11. How do you feel about what happens to Bird?

12. And again, distance is mentioned and the enigmatic statement that the "driving rain of summer storm . . . . is nothing like you'd expect." What could be meant?

13. The Epilogue concerns his grandmother's burial; again, Welch mixes the humorous with the serious; and again, we have two "conversations"–this time, the eulogy for Grandmother and the narrator's thoughts.

14. The last action in the novel is his throwing the pouch into her grave; note page 132 for the "old days." What could this action signify?