The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Department of English

Christian Watt, pages 1-50

1. What are some features of the society into which Christian was born? What do you note about family relationships and inheritance? The importance of dwellings? Class differences?

2. What seem to have been some features of her personality? What were her attitudes about travel? work? her relatives? class differences? men?

3. What do we learn about her parents? What did her parents work at, and what were their social circumstances? What values did her mother impress on her? What kind of relationship did she have with her parents?

4. What was her religious background? What seem to have been her responses to religious authorities?

5. What was her attitude toward education? Why was she not given more education, and what did she feel about this relative deprivation?

6. What were some of her more important early experiences? Under what circumstances did she work as a servant? Which occupations did she most enjoy, and why?

7. What response did she have to London? to the people and landscape of the Highlands? What kinds of pleasures did she and her friends enjoy?

8. What does she have to say about the events which followed the defeat of the Jacobites in 1746? By whom was Fraserburgh invaded? What actions made the population so bitter?

9. What were some features of life in the bothy? Of selling fish inland? What do you make of her comment that she would readily stab anyone who attacked her?

10. What attitude did she have toward tinkers (gypsies)?

11. What was her reaction to working at Philorth? Which family members did she like or resent, and why? What do her experiences seem to indicate about class relations at the time?

12. What are her attitudes toward men and marriage? Why did she refuse to marry Murray Fraser, despite his greater social status? On what grounds did her parents disapprove of the match? What other proposals does she reject, and why?

13. What seem to be her attitude toward those of higher social station or wealth? Do you think some of her response may be defensive?

14. What comments does she make on the Highland Clearances? On the refusal to teach Highland children in their own language? What reasons does she give for her interest in the subject?

15. What comments does she make on the presence of illegitimate children? In general, how would you characterize her social attitudes?

16. What are her opinions on what her editor calls the "agricultural revolution"? How did it adversely affect the people among whom she lived?


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