1. How did war (or the threat of war) seem to affect the lives of southern women? What do the readings suggest about the shifts in women's roles and self-image during this period?

2. How would you describe Mary Chesnut from her diairies? What sort of woman is she? What does she care about? What does she think of herself? of the people around her? What would you say are her best qualities? her weaknesses?

3. Chesnut, like many of the writers from last week, is a diarist rather than a novelist or short story writer. Since women did not often conceive of themselves as public figures, their writing frequently tended to be private, intended only for their own or their families' eyes. What are the limits of this kind of writing? What are its advantages? Given your readings so far, what do you think makes a "good" diary? Which ones have you preferred? [Remember to distinguish "diaries," which were not originally intended for publication (like Pinckney's or Chestnut's), from "autobiographies" like Keckley's, which were.]

4. Both the autobiography and the diary are types of "life-writing." How would you distinguish these two genres? How does the presentation of the self differ in each? In other words, how does the genre itself--the kind of writing--affect how much or how little of the writer that we see? What kinds of truth does each one offer a reader?

5. What can you discern of Elizabeth Keckley's personality from her autobiography? What kind of audience does she seem to be interested in reaching? How does she appeal to that audience? tone? kinds of information or details? How does she portray herself?

6.  Keckley's autobiography, though written after the war and focussed on her relationship with the Lincolns, draws from the tradition of slave narratives, such as Harriet Jacobs'. What connections with that tradition are discernible in the selection we read? What changes in the positions and perspectives of black women are evident in Keckley's narrative?

7. Though absent from the battlefield, southern women like Irene play an active role in its events. What part does Irene play in the excerpt from Macaria?  What images of womanhood are confirmed by that role? What roles are defined for white men? Black men and women? Dedicated "To the Army of the Southern Confederacy," how might this novel have fulfilled its avowed purpose of rallying the spirits of southerners?

8. In what ways does the notion of the southern woman show up in these readings? Compare the ways that Chesnut, Evans, and Keckley reflect a consciousness of themselves as "southerners" or "southern women."  Weeks & Perry observe that Chesnutt "found the written word a source of power." As you reflect on our readings so far, what kinds of power does writing afford southern women? How do they use that power? What are the consequences for them and for their readers?