Trilby questions

For Monday please answer question 10

For Friday please answer question 5 or 9.

For Wed. no thinksheet

1. What is the tone of this novel?

2. Who is the narrator of the novel? How would you characterize the narrator's perspective?

3. Look at the opening description of Little Billee on pages 6-7. What do you make of the speculation of some distant Jewish ancestry for him? How does this representation of Jewishness compare to Svengali?

4. The novel contains many details about food and other aspects of daily existence. What is the significance of these details and other details of everyday life?

5. This is a novel about artists. What types of artists are depicted? How do they vary in levels of talent, in the types of art (visual, music etc) that they engage in? What is the relationship between art and everyday life in the novel?

6. Gecko asserts that there are two Trilbys, the Trilby the men had known and La Svengali. But there are references to Trilby's dual nature throughout the novel. What are some of the ways in which she is dual?

7. Trilby becomes a great singer under the influence of Svengali. How would you characterize their relationship?

8. What is the relationship between France and England in the novel? How do the English artists live in Paris?

9. Svengali is depicted in a very negative light and yet he is an artist who can create works of true beauty. How do you account for this combination of attributes?

10. Both Harrington and Trilby are concerned with questions of English identity and who is "English." Compare and contrast how these two novels use Jewish characters to define "Englishness."

11. What is the significance of Svengali's photograph near the end of the novel?