Keeper

Nature plays a central role in the text. How does The Keeper examine nature’s value and potential? How does the text reflect some of the complexities surrounding economic development versus conservation?

How do the novel’s structure and its utilization of a frame story impact your understanding of the text? What role do Faustino and his interview play in developing the themes, characters, and/or tone of the novel?

Although the novel’s time is unknown, it contains several distinctive settings: The village, the logging camp, and the forest. How does each one of these settings help illustrate the novel’s theme(s), develop its characters, and/or impact the conflict(s) in the text?

How do the themes of The Importance of Nature and The Power of Sports interact in the novel? Analyze the ways the two themes work together to impact Gato’s growth and development in the text.

What role do animals play in the novel? Identify at least three animals, closely analyzing their metaphorical or symbolic significance.

What role does magical realism play in the novel? How does the novel blend magical and realistic elements, and what do the magical elements offer to the story that a more purely realistic novel would not?

How does The Keeper fit into the Bildungsroman (coming-of-age) genre? In what ways does it conform to, or diverge from, common tropes or ideas of the genre?

The novel explores the idea of father figures and father-son relationships, both through the figure of Gato’s real father and the role the Keeper plays in Gato’s life. How are Gato’s father and the Keeper different or similar to one another? What does the novel suggest about the nature of father-son bonds?