28 pages • 56 minutes read
Megan HunterThe End We Start From
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A 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
Write about the effect of namelessness in The End We Start From. Why are the characters referred to only by their initials? How does this impact your experience of the story?
How do Z’s birth and infancy parallel the course of the flood? How is motherhood similar to the crisis of a natural disaster?
Why does Hunter choose to avoid overt details about the causes of the crisis? How does this impact your understanding of the disaster the characters are living through?
In 2023, The End We Start From was adapted into a film. How does the film differ from the text? How does it remain true to the text? Does the film adaptation add anything new to your understanding of the story? Does it take away anything meaningful?
What does R’s character say about the role of masculinity in the novel? Consider the fact that R is absent for most of the story.
What would the story have been like without O? How does her presence impact the narrator and propel the story?
Compare and contrast The End We Start From with other works of climate survival fiction such as The Road. How are the stories similar? How do they offer different messages about humanity’s response to crisis?
What is the role of the italicized third-person interludes that overlap with the narrator’s first-person reflections? How does the intersection of creation mythology and personal experience impact the story’s development?
Like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), The End We Start From contains dystopian elements and is driven by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of female characters. Could The End We Start From also be categorized as feminist dystopian fiction? Why or why not?
Due to its lyrical language and unconventional structure, does The End We Start From feel more like a novel or a poem? Does its categorization impact its effectiveness as a story?
