60 pages • 2-hour read
Between the World and Me
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Essay Topics
In your own words, define “the Dream.” How have you or have you not seen it at work in your own life?
What is the significance of Coates’s time in Paris?
Explain the influence of the three women Coates falls in love with at Howard University.
How does Coates’s mother shape his learning and writing? How does his experience in school shape his work? Analyze the differences and similarities between these two models of learning.
How does the death of Prince Carmen Jones impact Coates?
Why is Malcolm X an important figure in Coates’s life?
Analyze Coates’s interest in and interpretation of the American Civil War.
What does Coates mean by “trophy case” (56) in relation to his study of African and African American history?
Coates writes to Samori, “You cannot forget how much they took from us and how they transfigured our very bodies into sugar, tobacco, cotton, and gold” (73). What does this quote mean? Why does Coates think this lesson is important for Samori to understand his past?
Write a close analysis of the following passage: “But do not pin your struggle to their conversion. The Dreamers will have to learn to struggle themselves, to understand that the field for their Dream, the stage where they have painted themselves white, is the deathbed of us all” (148). Consider the book’s primary themes when composing your analysis.
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