Group F/B should answer TWO of the following:
Q1: What seems to surprise the people on vacation about
their first contact with aliens? Why is it disappointing, yet disturbing? Why
do the vacationers generally prefer to “[disperse] to our hotel rooms and
immaculate beds” (260)?
Q2: As fear and resentment grows, the aliens are eventually
attacked and even killed by angry youths. Surprisingly, the narrator is less
concerned about them than the people who commit these crimes: “We picked at our
dinners without appetite, worrying about these promising youths, who had been
headed for sports scholarships and elite universities” (262). Though this seems
somewhat callous, why does the narrator respond this way? Do you think this is
at all realistic, given the circumstances?
Q3: When the second group of aliens appear on Earth, they
get a very different reception by humanity. Why does the narrator remark,
“Cameras panned over them, and excitement crackled through us, for this was the
kind of history we wanted to be part of” (262). Why is this alien landing
different than the first? What makes it better?
Q4: Writing about this story, E. Lily Yu remarked, “This
story precipitated, crystalline and complete, from a clear-sighted fury in
August 2016…It is as close as I come to pitching a brick through a window”
(354). What do you think she’s responding to in the story as a naysayer?
What idea, concept, or even does she angrily disagree with?
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