The Rockpile by James Baldwin pages 1024-1031

Answer each question with a complete sentence.

1. Where are the various characters when the action of the story begins?

2. What draws Roy to the rockpile?

3. What happens at the rockpile?

4. Whom does Gabriel blame for Roy’s injury?

5. Whom does Elizabeth blame?

6. What role does John serve in the family?

7. What evidence is there that John’s relationship with Gabriel is different from that of the other children?

8. What conclusions can you draw about Gabriel’s relationship with Elizabeth?

9. Why do his feelings toward Elizabeth soften at the end of the story?

10. Whom do you blame for Roy’s injury?

11. Why doesn’t John immediately tell his mother that Roy went to the Rockpile?

12. What are the causes of Elizabeth’s protectiveness toward John?

13. What can you infer, or conclude, about how the setting affects the way Gabriel and Elizabeth raise their children?

14. What are some of the potential dangers that the setting presents?

15. What evidence is there that the rockpile symbolizes these (and other) dangers?