“The Leap” Discussion Questions

Name: __xavier____________

1) Remind yourself of what “characterization” is, and what “direct” and “indirect”
characterization are. Google them if you can’t remember and write the definitions below.

Characterization is the creation of a fictional character.

Direct is the author tells the reader front forward about the character.
Indirectly, the author doesn’t tell the reader what this person is like they have to read and predict
it.

2) Find a quote that shows DIRECT characterization of the narrator’s mother.

“…the catlike precision of her movements in old age might be the result of her early training.”

3) Find a quote that shows INDIRECT characterization of the narrator. (Essentially, you can pick
any quote you want, you just have to explain how it shows something specific about the
narrator.)
“I owe her my existence three time.” This shows that she is grateful and willing to return any
favors asked.

4) The narrator says she “owes her mother her existence three times.” (Paragraph 3). What are
the three times?
When her mother saved herself, to the two of them and the hospital that brought them together,
and her mother saving her from the burning house.

5) How does the above quote show how the narrator feels about her mother?
This shows that the narrator is grateful and forever in debt to her mother for multiple reasons.
6) Find another quote from the story that shows how the narrator feels about her mother and
explain how the quote shows this.
“Then I wrapped my hands around my mothers’ hands. I felt the brush of her lips and heard the
beat of heart in my ears, loud as thunder, long as the roll of drums.” The author is thankful for
her mother as she saved her but also loving that she risked her life for her.

7) In paragraph 15, the narrator says, “I wonder if my father calculated the exchange he offered:
one form of flight for another.” What does this quote mean? What two forms of flight is the
narrator talking about?
That he helped her through depression and got love in return

8) Why do you think the narrator’s mother was never without a book after she learned to read?

Because she was taught how to read by her husband and didn’t know it too early and always
wanted to.

9) Why do you think the narrator emphasized that, “As you fall, there is time to think”?

Because time slows down when you fell like this is the end, so you feel like you have a lot of
time to think.

10) Remind yourself of the different between “figurative” and “literal.” Google it if you don’t
remember. Write the definitions below.

Literal language uses words exactly according to their conventionally

accepted meanings or denotation.
Figurative (or non-literal) language uses words in a way that deviates
from their conventionally accepted definitions to convey a more
complicated meaning or heightened effect.

Then, identify both the FIGURATIVE leaps in the story and the LITERAL leaps.
Figurative leap the leap of her mom learning how to read and the new meaning of life.
Literal leap the actual leap her mom takes for trapeze.