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The Fall
of Rome Reader's Guide (Printable)
1. Why does
the author choose to switch points of view? How does
seeing the story play out through three distinctly
different vantages help in your understanding of
the underlying themes and tensions therein?
2. What is the significance of the quotes at the beginning of the novel? How
do they help inform your reading?
3. Nothing affects the choices, thoughts, and actions of these characters more
than the lens through which they perceive the world. At times it seems as if
Jerome, Rashid, and Jana often view those surrounding them not as unique, individual
beings, but as hybrids of people and places that they have encountered before.
Do you agree or disagree that this is true?
4. Similarly, how much of one's connection with another person has to do with
a shared past? Mr. Washington quotes Cicero early in the novel, saying, "Our
character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances
by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nourished and live." Do you
agree with this? Is this viewpoint inherently limiting in terms of human relationships,
or just harshly realistic? What do you think the novel suggests?
5. At one point Jerome Washington ruminates on what he calls "great kindness
and openness," stating, "well, those are not the only virtues. And they are,
after all, the ones that cost us the most." What do you think he means by this?
Are these virtues more dangerous to someone like Rashid than to the other boys
at Chelsea? How so? Does the author agree with Washington's opinion?
6. The idea of control is a central theme in this story, and we watch as different
characters teeter on the edge of chaos in terms of their bodies, minds, and
their surroundings. In the end, what kind of statement do you think the author
may be making about the Roman concept of a "controlled life," keeping in mind
the disastrous consequences of Washington's rigidity.
7. How is running a metaphor for Rashid's life? For Mr. Washington's? What
did you make of the scene in which Rashid beats Mr. Washington?
8. Discuss setting in this novel, paying particular attention to how the pristine
Chelsea campus elicits seemingly disparate feelings for many of the main characters.
How does the setting tie into larger themes of order and control and experience
vs. heredity?
9. The Fall of Rome is a story about growing up, survival, and the coping mechanisms
that young black men need to succeed. What are the different strategies that
Rashid and Jerome Washington use to make themselves seen in a world that would
prefer that they were invisible? Does the author make any judgments regarding
whose way is more successful? What was your reaction when Mr. Washington said,
referring to Rashid, "He didn't know that the only way to win them over was
to concede"?
10. As one of the few black boys in the white, upper-class environment of Chelsea,
Rashid bears the burden of being a kind of representative for his race. Look
at the different ways that he reacts to this pressure and think about why his
reactions might be different than those of a character like Gerald.
11. Discuss the parallels between the characters of Rashid and Mr. Washington,
focusing on the traits that their families share -- especially their mothers.
Think about how they both come to the Chelsea school to escape their history,
but find it staring them in the face when they look upon each other. To what
extent do you think the anger between them stems from a desire to reject their
upbringings? Which character seems better able to handle this combination of
past and future?
12. After his trip back to his family's home in Brooklyn, Rashid has an epiphany
of sorts when he realizes "He was hated, but it wasn't his problem." What do
you think he means by this, exactly? In what ways does this realization ultimately
lead to the confrontation on the cross-country field?
13. Where do you envision Rashid in ten years? Do you think he will be a success
story? Do you think his opinion of Mr. Washington may change over time?
A Note from the Author, Martha Southgate
The rolling hills and fields described in the opening pages of this novel are
an accurate description of the campus of the northeastern Ohio prep school
that I attended for four years (though it was not a boarding school). Everything
else in The Fall of Rome, however, is fiction, my favorite way to write. I
love making things up. The characters are not modeled on anyone I knew either
then or now. My attendance at that school was a formative experience of my
life and this book is an attempt to examine, through imagined characters and
lives, some aspects of what that experience meant to me and what it might mean
for others.
I'm in my forties. I think that people of my age and younger, the post-Civil
Rights generation, face a world that is full of choices about what race means
that someone of Jerome's age could not possibly imagine. I wanted, in this
novel, to examine some of the ways such characters might clash as well as the
ways they might come together around race and around values. These issues continue
to interest me, and I imagine I'll always keep exploring them in my work.
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