44 pages • 1 hour read
BromSlewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Brom incorporates a great deal of detail into the historical setting of Sutton. What is the text’s relationship between verisimilitude and fantasy?
Abitha has complicated and often ambivalent feelings about Edward, her husband. Do the events of the novel resolve Abitha’s conflicted feelings about Edward? If so, how?
Abitha is quick to forgive Samson for eating her husband. What does this choice say about Abitha?
Why is the relationship between Abitha and Samson coded as sexual even though these characters never explicitly have sex? What does the sexual subtext add to their character arcs?
The illustrations in the novel offer the author’s renderings of the main characters. Choose one of these. How does the illustration of this character relate to their textual characterization?
The word “mamunappeht” means “net maker” in Algonquin (Indigenous people of eastern Canada). How does this translation contextualize this character?
In the long massacre that ends the novel, Ansel Fitch has the final death—and it is his death, not Wallace’s, that connects Abitha with the Earth Mother. Why is it symbolically significant that Ansel should die last, and that his death should give Abitha her new life?
Masks—both literal and metaphorical--play a significant role in this narrative. How is the concept of masking/disguise developed over the course of the novel?
What does Samson’s blood symbolize?
Brom indicates that the events of the Epilogue happen in West Virginia, not Connecticut. What is implied by the presence of the Pawpaw tree in a new location? What does the change of setting for Abitha and Samson indicate?
