51 pages • 1-hour read
Women Talking
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Book Club Questions
General Impressions
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of sexual violence, rape, substance use, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and gender discrimination.
Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.
1. What emotions and thoughts emerged for you while reading this novel about women responding to systematic abuse?
2. This novel is inspired by real events in a Bolivian Mennonite colony where women were drugged and raped. In what ways does Toews’s fictionalization compare to novels that explore similar themes, such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale?
3. The story unfolds through August’s meeting minutes rather than traditional narration. Did this epistolary format add to or detract from your reading experience?
Personal Reflection and Connection
Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.
1. When have you faced a decision between staying in a difficult but familiar situation or venturing into unknown territory? How did you navigate the situation?
2. “All we women have are our dreams—so of course we are dreamers” (55), says Ona. What dreams have sustained you during challenging times?
3. The women contemplate whether forced forgiveness is genuine forgiveness. What shapes your own understanding of what true forgiveness means and requires?
4. Which animal metaphor or story from the novel (like Greta’s horses or Agata’s raccoon) resonated most strongly with you? Why?
5. The women demonstrate profound wisdom despite their lack of formal education. Has this portrayal affected your views on the relationship between schooling and wisdom?
Societal and Cultural Context
Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.
1. What parallels do you see between the isolated Mennonite colony in the novel and other controlled environments that exist in our contemporary world?
2. The novel portrays women finding their voices within a repressive religious framework. Where do you observe similar tensions between religious tradition and women’s autonomy in the world today?
4. How does the women’s decision to leave rather than stay and fight connect to broader questions about reform versus revolution in social movements?
Literary Analysis
Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.
1. What does August’s idealization of Ona reveal about the novel’s themes of perspective, truth, and the male gaze?
2. Dreams recur throughout the novel as both metaphors and literal experiences. What do these dreams suggest about the characters’ subconscious lives?
3. Ona and Salome embody contrasting responses to trauma. What do their differing approaches contribute to the novel’s exploration of survival?
4. Many readers have compared Toews’s exploration of women’s resilience in this novel to her earlier work, All My Puny Sorrows. What recurring themes do you notice across Toews’s writing about women’s experiences?
5. Animals appear as symbols throughout the novel. What commentary do these animal references make about power and personhood?
6. How do the compressed timeframe and confined hayloft setting shape the novel’s tension and the women’s evolving relationships?
Creative Engagement
Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.
1. Draft three principles that might appear in the manifesto that Ona proposes for the women’s new community.
2. The novel ends with the women’s departure, leaving their future unwritten. What challenges and triumphs might they encounter in their first year away from Molotschna?
3. If you were one of the women who left, what would you write in a letter to August one year later?
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