1. What role does the Civil Rights Movement play in the course of Mike's life? What lessons does she learn about the struggle when she returns to Lytton two decades later? How has Mike's relationship with J.W. changed since they were both children? How do you explain her father's acts of kindness to J.W. and Rusky, given his virulent animosity towards the Civil Rights Movement in general? Is J.W. saved or imprisoned by John Winship's employment?

2. Mike's old teacher and confidant, Priss Comfort, tells her, "love is a policy, Mike, not a feeling. Time you learned that." What does she mean? Which characters treat love as a policy, and which base their love on feeling? Which do you think is a better way to operate? Does Mike learn to value Priss' advice concerning love?

3. Sam tells Mike, "when you came down here, you were nothing but a child. All we saw of you for the longest kind of time was children. The 'good' child, the rebellious child, the little nymphet . . . But you were nowhere near being a whole woman." What was it about her visit to Lytton that enabled her to become "whole?" What role did the other people in her life play in her eventual growth? She sees very little of her father even during her stay, and yet he plays a tremendous role in Mike's transformation to wholeness. How calculating is John Winship in his behavior toward his daughters? How do you feel about him as a husband, as a father, and as a human being?

4. What does Siddons mean when she refers to "the bell jar" surrounding Mike? Do you find it an effective metaphor? Why, or why not? Can you personally relate to the feeling of living life through a bell jar? What does it block out, and what does it let in? How does the bell jar protect Mike, and how does it cripple her? Why might she have developed it in the course of her life?