Shiver Discussion

Great discussion today! Here are the questions we talked about in class, plus the two we didn’t have time for:

1. When asked what inspired her to write Shiver, Stiefvater responded “I’m a terrible person. I like to watch people cry. I like to make people cry, preferable while wearing mascara, contact lenses, or at their place of business.” She also dedicated the novel “For Kate, because she cried.” What do you think is significant about this? What do you think it means? How can we relate it to the regulation of the body, or lack thereof, that we have been discussing in class, and is rampant in this book? Support your ideas with examples from the text.
2. When asked why she writes about werewolves, Stiefvater responded “I prefer human impaired. Sorry girls, I do not find werewolves sexy. They have fleas, they slobber, they smell like wet dog…It was a metaphor for losing your humanity in a homogeneous suburban society! Then I woke up and realized I wrote a trilogy about werewolves.” Where in the novel do you see this metaphor? How do you think it could relate to our discussion of appetites? Support your ideas with examples from the text.
   
3. When asked what she hopes readers will take away from Shiver and Linger, Stiefvater responded “The idea that you choose the person you turn into. A fondness for German poetry. An undying craving for hot chocolate or chicken parmesan.” Did you come away with any of this? How can these ideas relate to our class discussions of appetites? How could one argue that appetites are what drive the plot of the novel? Support your ideas with examples from the text.
4. One of the discussion questions Stiefvater has on her website says “Beck changed three teens into werewolves to continue the care of the pack after he and Sam became wolves for good. Sam is horrified by his decision; Grace slightly less so, especially once she finds out that he had their consent. Do you think Beck was justified in taking such drastic steps to ensure caretakers for the wolves? What other options did he have?” How can we relate these questions to the trend in Angela Carter’s work of regretful, self-aware monsters? The countess in “The lady of the House of Love” “would like to be human” (197), and “Everything abou this beautiful and ghastly lady is as it should be, queen of night, queen of terror—except her horrible reluctance for the role” (197). In “The Company of Wolves,” Carter says “That long-drawn, wavering howl has, for all its fearful resonance, some inherent sadness in it, as if the beasts would love to be less beastly if only they knew how and never cease to mourn their own condition” (213). Where do we see similar ideas in Shiver? What is their significance?

If you want to check it out, Maggie Stiefvater’s website is http://www.maggiestiefvater.com/