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Grace Paley, A Conversation with My Father

Grace Paley, A Conversation with My Father

Read A Conversation with My Father and check your comprehension by answering the following questions. Then “submit” your work.

Question 1.1780

1. How old is the narrator’s father when she has this conversation with him?

Question 1.1781

2. What does the father wish the narrator to do?

He wishes her to study the Scandinavian authors.

He wishes her to write the story of his life.

He wishes her to write a simple story just once more.

He wishes her to get married and provide him with at least one grandchild before he dies.

Question 1.1782

3. What story does the narrator tell her father?

She tells him the story of an apple tree that lives exalted in a lonely orchard.

She tells him the story of a hobbled Frenchman who once lived in Italy during Mussolini’s dictatorship.

She tells him the story of herself as a girl when he scolded her for taking a perfect chocolate bar from the store.

She tells him about a neighbor woman who becomes a junkie when her son becomes a junkie.

Question 1.1783

4. How does the father respond to the first version she tells him of the story?

He tells her that she has hit the nail on the head.

He tells her that she misunderstood him and that there is a lot more to it.

He tells her that she has wasted her art on base and untrue things.

He says nothing, but only weeps and weeps.

Question 1.1784

5. What disagreement do the narrator and her father have over the second telling of the story?

He weeps at the second telling as well and the narrator is unable to see what in the story could make him sorrowful. She demands he explain his emotions.

He says the story is perfection itself and the narrator is unable to accept that any story ever written has ever been perfect.

He assumes that she lied about the main character and she insists that she is telling the true story of a person she actually knows.

He assumes that the main character remained as she did at the end of the story without the ability to change and the narrator maintains that the character could change.